"TRAINING DAY"
Playing against type-cast can be very challenging for any actor.
But for some it can result in your achieving the Oscar.
Denzel Washington, who is pretty much a stud in all of his films, has pulled this off. We're all used to him playing the good guy, the one pious dude amongst all the baddies. He sticks to his ethical guns and we all support him.
He just has that presense about him; always has.
But then he chose to upend our world by playing what appears to be a crooked cop running the streets of LA.
Now, imagine partnering him up w/ a rookie cop, Ethan Hawke, who is a law-abiding cop at all costs. Now for those of you who are familiar w/ Hawke, he always seems to come off as the innocent guy who is easily manipulated, therefore supplying Denzel's character with a field day in taking advantage of him.
So there's the stage, here's the story.
Denzel is a detective who 'owns' the streets. Hawke is a rookie assigned to be his partner, but has a conscience. As Hawke tries to do good, Denzel does his own thing which may appear to be 'bad', or just necessary for the field.
As the story progresses, Denzel is successful in getting the rookie to get high and drink beer in order to 'relax him and get to know the streets'.
Well, Hawke doesn't approve of his teacher's behavior, and after awhile, all hell breaks lose between them.
In all, I did enjoy it. It was entertaining.
But it frustrated me. There were too many scenes where I kept saying to myself "That wouldn't have happened. I don't care if he's a rookie cop, he wouldn't have done that".
As for Denzel, his performance wasn't Oscar worthy. The reason we won it was due to his playing against type-cast, but since he didn't win it while playing do-gooders when he deserved it, the Academy chose to ackowledge this anti-Denzel performance.
But it was fun. Its always a pleasure to watch Denzel be assertive. But I'm used to the circumstances being legitimate, and there were too many incidences where the situation was silly and unrealistic.
My Grade: C+
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