Training Day (2001)

starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke

directed by Antoine Fuqua

122 minutes

Jake's (Ethan Hawke) first day working for Alonzo (Denzel Washington), a decorated undercover LAPD detective, doesn't exactly go as he thought it would. He quickly finds himself butting heads with Alonzo and getting bullied into doing things that he otherwise would not. Before he knows it, Alonzo is asking Jake to kill another cop. Alonzo has his reasons for doing what he does and eventually these reasons become clear.

Thoughts

This is the second time I have seen this movie. The first time was about 21 years ago in early Nov 2002. That time it was a Netflix rental. This time I watched it on Tubi. I don't recall exactly what my reaction was to the movie in 2002.

Denzel Washington won his second Academy Award for his performance in this film. His first award was for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Glory (1989). Ethan Hawke was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in this movie but he did not win.

I want to like this movie more than I do but I wasn't crazy about it. It has some tense moments but there are also some things about it that just made me roll my eyes, especially in the last 30 minutes of the movie. There were a few too many coincidences to satisfy me.

The performances are better than the story. In the hands of lesser actors this would be a laughably bad film.