Have you ever watched a movie that you loved after a few years and saw something totally different in it that you missed before? Well, over the weekend, i had a little downtime and decided to pop in the ol' DVD of Denzel Washington's Training Day.... A lot of the time, when you first see a movie, you're just taking in the overall plot and not looking at what drives these characters too much.... but upon the second or third viewing, you havve a lot more time to get into things.... Training Day is about how these two asshole cops fuck up this sweet ass 1988 Monte Carlo SS over the course of one day... Seriously, I was actually a little critical of Denzel winning the oscar for this movie, but now I can sort of appreciate why he did. Antione is a good cop gone bad after years on the streets. You can tell that deep down in him, there is still this rookie cop who believes that he is doing the right thing... He makes references to it a few times, but we don't see it at all on screen. But that's the brilliance of Denzel's performance... instead of playing Antione as a bad guy, Denzel plays him as a guy who believes that he's doing the right thing... that's why he's so believable in this role. "To protect the sheep, you have to become the motherfuckin' wolf." This one line sums up Antione. He later brags about how his tactics has lead to judged handing out over 15,000 years of incarceration time based upon his investigations... So the "Wolf" thing is working for him and along comes this bright eyed youngster with a pre-concieved notion of how the world is... Ethan Hawke's William Hoyt... is brilliant. He should have gotten at least a supporting actor nomination for his performance.... Or did he? He's fresh out of a uniform and decides that he knows enough to make snap judgements of what he's witnessing on this one day. Is it at all possible that Detectives like Antione make it possible for uniformed police officers to walk the high road in their jobs? Is it at all possible that Hoyt may become more Antione like in his job as he becomes more exposed? His performance reminds me of several new doctors with preconcieved ideals when they start to practice and soon find out that these things are not practical to everyday operations. I guess there is a little Antione in me....
All I know is, ole' Denzel would not have talked me into hitting that pipe in the car. No fuckin' way.
For all the good he was a BAD GUY. Him trying to turn that guy right off the bat was messed up. I feel he had no more good left in him and wanted to take down whoever he could with him. Personally, I saw no good in him. That dude was all the way over the edge. That car was sweet but I;m not sure it was an SS.
If I were Denzel's character, I would have spent less time doing bad deeds and more time hittin' his baby mama.
Was there any good left in Darth Vader? Dude... watch it again. Yes, he does do some bad things... OK, a lot of them... up to and including murder, but in his mind, I believe that what came off as bullshit to Hawke's character was somewhat sincere. Antione was a cop that learned to operate in a corrupt system... The streets, the LAPD, all of that. Think about the scene where the girl is getting raped. Hoyt sees it and pleads with Antione to stop the car so that he can intervene. Antione is sort of ambivelent to downright against doing so, but does so against his better judgement. What would have happened to the girl would have been terrible, but his job was that of an undercover narcotics detective. Should he potentially blow his cover to protect this girl or leave it to the uniformed police to sort it out later? He knows all the major drug dealers in town and even seems buddy-buddy with them. He has become the "Wolf" in order to do his job better. They know him as a crooked cop... but they do not cross the line with him because they know he's a cop. How much of that was letting the small fish go to catch the bigger fish? I kind of wish that whole "Russian Mafia is out to kill Antione" story was taken out of the plot and it would have been a much better movie. I think the point that the writers were trying to make would have been more clear. It would have illustrated how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. All in all, I'd have to say that this was a very brilliant movie written by a white boy from the burbs no less. He really understood the subject matter very well.
Ya know, Denzel was so good in that role that I hated his ass for real. I didn't like the way he was playing the rookie and then when they killed that guy who was their friend/informant....fughedaboudit!! But I will have to watch again with Alphaman glasses on.
