Black & White World

You can tell by the lines I'm reciting, I've seen that movie too.

Big Screen

Sunday, October 20, 2002

Training Day (2001)

Plot outline:  It’s Jake Hoyt’s (Hawke) first day on the job in the narcotics division of the LAPD.  His training officer is veteran Alonzo Harris (Washington), whose methods are a little on the unconventional side.  For the next 24 hours, Hoyt gets an up-close and personal look at life on the streets, and constant pop quizzes regarding who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.

I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to.  Washington’s performance, while not really being Oscar-worthy (or maybe it’s the movie itself that doesn’t strike me as Oscar-worthy), is fascinating in the role of the corrupt cop, and Hawke doesn’t annoy me too much as the moral compass of the film.

A lot of the scenes didn’t ring true to me, such as the badasses of South Central allowing the white cop to just come breezing through in the middle of the night, but I guess a bit of poetic license is still justifiable, especially in a movie like this which seems to be more of an allegory than a straight work of fiction.