I watched this movie when I was 17 when it first came out and I loved it - rated it 8/10 (I’m a hard rater). Gave it a re-watch recently, expecting at least a decent movie considering it is Denzel, and man was I surprised….to the downside.
The screenplay is a little shaky, with the dialogue being corny in more than a few scenes, and to be honest, Denzel’s performance was good, but not great (yes, I know he won the Oscar), but it certainly was not as good as his best, which I’d say is Crimson Tide.
But the worst part of this movie that prevented me from enjoying my the best parts, we’re the abundance of plot holes. Like what the hell?
I counted 5 big ones:
1) Hoyt saves a random girl and then keeps her wallet and then his would-be murderer an hour later happens to be her uncle, who finds the wallet 2 seconds for the trigger is pulled?
2) Alonzo has a bounty on his head due that day but twice he does not kill Hoyt when could/should have (he outsources it the first time (see plot hole 1) and then leaves Hoyt for dead the second time (patio/balcony fight), both times of course Hoyt comes back).
3) the phone call between the uncle and the niece in which she says in an extremely pleasant voice, “I was raped, it’s no big deal.” That it not even remotely how a sexual assault victim acts or talks.
4) Card Game Scene - Why would a cop, even a rookie, ever, ever, ever hand his gun over to a gangster for friendly inspection?
5) I get Alonzo is pushing boundaries with the newbie, but why invite Hoyt into Roger’s house when they execute him? They already have enough to blackmail Hoyt to keep him in line, and so why not tell him to stay in the car? Then when shots are fired, he can barge in as backup and be under the impression that they acted in self-defence? Duping someone into smoking pot is one thing, making them a murder accomplice is something totally else.
Look it, I love a great vigilante thriller. This one was just over the top to the point of ridiculousness. (5/10).
Mixed emotions about this one… While the performance by Denzel Washington was classic and obviously Oscar-worthy, the story itself was completely absent: there WAS no "story". It epitomized what, in my opinion, is the reality behind virtually every police officer on every police force today: the "golly gee gosh o' mighty I'm so lucky to be a po-leece orificer, hyuck hyuck hyuck...I'm here to pertick 'n' serve, yessir yessir, gosh o' mighty..." rookie with stars in his eyes and rose-colored glasses on his first day before descending - in a roughly 12- to 16-hour shift - into a corrupt bully with a badge. And yeah, that's pretty much what I think of ALL cops. I think they're all corrupt and don't do squat except write traffic tickets and strut around bullying people while avoiding real crime because they know it will blow up in their jelly-donut smeared faces. I loved Denzel's performance...in fact, almost every memorable character in this film pulled their parts off stunningly...but as a movie, it basically blew chunks because there was simply no real story tying everything together. Corrupt narcotics officer trains rookie clean-as-a-whistle "by the books" officer. But as a movie, it was just all over the place with virtually no connections anywhere. Too much going on in too many places and if there was any "glue" holding the stories together, it snapped in several places because the film was very disjointed. Additionally, the ending was so abrupt and vague that it left you feeling like you'd been cheated out of the final 10 minutes of the movie: when the ending credits started rolling, I literally stared at the screen thinking, "What? That's it?!! That's the ending?" Very disappointed. Glad for DW that he got his Oscar (this performance was well-deserving) but final score for this as an overall movie: Meh. I've seen better. A LOT better.
Review by r96skBlockedParent2020-09-05T00:43:49Z
Denzel Washington is sensational in this, the plot might not quite match his performance but 'Training Day' is still a great watch. It's a riveting 122 minutes, I'm just not in love with how the premise is played out.
Washington's character, Alonzo, never really changes throughout, despite a supposed problem of his. I kept waiting for a reason to change the opinion that the first act puts to you regarding him but it never came, there's never a point I cared for him and I assume I was supposed to... at least to some degree? Also, his issue is thrown at you in one scene and isn't really mentioned again until the end. I get the character, just not his arc.
Ethan Hawke is very good, too, in this, even if I kept hearing Tom Cruise when he spoke... You also have a load of now familiar faces involved, including Eva Mendes, Raymond Cruz, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Terry Crews. Quite an interesting cast list, that.
Loved all of this, except the (still good) plot execution. Maybe that's just me though. From what I've seen, Washington's best performance so far. He's the main takeaway from this whatever way you look at it.