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Benjamin Wood
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Score: 3/5

Looking back on Oscar winning performances is always a difficult ordeal. On one hand, the nuances of a commanding performance become more evident to those who would ordinarily miss them, and the strength of the performance can be heightened simply by knowing the actor won an Oscar. On the other hand, it is also common to try to critique every flaw of the performance, to judge whether this performance was truly as spectacular as the Academy seemed to think it was.

Training Day was Denzel Washington's first lead actor Oscar, and his second Oscar overall (having won for his supporting role in Glory in 1989). And his performance as rogue detective Alonzo Harris is definitely powerful, but it's difficult to shake the feeling that this was a "make up" Oscar, one given to strong actor who had previously been snubbed for past performances. In this case, it seems that the Academy was trying to say "I'm sorry" for giving the Oscar to Al Pacino in 1992 instead of Denzel's performance as Malcolm X.

Overall, Training Day is a mediocre movie that is bolstered by great acting. Denzel's performance was electric, and during the first half of the film is positively attention-grabbing. Ethan Hawke's performance as rookie narcotics cop Jake Hoyt seems pedestrian for the first half-hour of the film, but it seems that his performance gets more powerful as his character slowly starts to take control of the situation he's in. By the end, both actors are carrying the film on their shoulders, trying their damndest to keep the film from failing under the weight of its average plot and sometimes sub-par dialogue. When one of the scenes directly leading to the finale centers around the line "Have you ever had your shit pushed in?", I can't help but wonder how much better this movie would've been with someone who could write decent dialogue.

The main problem with the plot is the conventionality. Jake must stay amazingly oblivious through the first two-thirds of the movie, and seems to ignore blatantly obvious signs that things are amiss. The movie also never really hides the fact that Alonzo is a dirty cop with something to hide, nor does it reveal his true motives with subtlety. Alonzo is portrayed as rotten from the start, and revelations about his character seem to be introduced with a sledgehammer rather than threaded in with a needle. In a movie that deals so much with deception, it's a shame that the characters seem to be revealed halfway through the movie, making the second half an exercise in waiting for the moment when the characters finally realize what the viewers have known for a while.

This plot mechanic may have worked well in film-noir, where those revelations made by the audience are frequently dashed by even further plot development, but Training Day has nothing beneath its surface. It's a straightforward police thriller masquerading as something more. It grabs the viewer's attention with the performances from Washington and Hawke, and yet does nothing with them. It's exciting and tense, yet afterwards seems unnaturally empty. It builds and builds, yet delivers the payoff way too soon, and by the end delivers us plot twists so contrived that they border on being Deus ex Machina revelations, and the ending can only be described as unnecessary and vaguely insulting to viewers who were expecting much, much more. If it had just been a standard action movie, it probably could be hailed as great, as an example of some of the best the genre has to offer. Training Day is not content to be called simply an empty action movie, however. It tries for something more, and completely misses the mark.

On a final note, I can't help but address the fact that Denzel won an Oscar for his portrayal of a crooked, violent, stereotypically boisterous Black cop, instead of Black community leader Malcolm X. I hope not to imply that the Academy made this decision with racist intent, but rather that, in the future, they might need to be a little more careful when doling out condolence Oscars.

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