Training Day

I remember when I was a kid, lets say probably 04'-05', I saw that my dad had this particular movie in his DVD collection. This collection had some notable films such as: Goodfellas, The Godfather series, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Boyz in the Hood, and many many more like that. I could remember him telling me that Denzel Washington in the movie was a gangster. My dad would so reference that famous line Denzel yells towards the end of the movie, "King Kong ain't got shit on me!" all the time as a joke around the house. I distinctly remember him telling me that we would watch it some day together because it's one of his all time favorites. Cut to roughly fifteen or fourteen years later I finally decided to sit down and watch this. I can tell you that I think that film is pretty great. Sure it has the beginnings of the David Ayer pitfalls of good cops and bad cops or gangs and violence, really the things that are his attractions when putting pen to paper, but here in this film it just clicks. It all works so well. It has to do with the chemistry between Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington. Together on screen its light lightening in a bottle, these two absolutely dynamic. Whether its Denzel letting loose as an actor or Hawke being quiet but loud when the moment calls for it, it all makes for an entertaining watch. There is something difficult to handle in the film. It's probably watching someone like Denzel be this kind of person. Maybe it's the charisma he simply oozes, but the character of Alonzo Harris is someone I could've seen be a good man for the community. He tows the line between someone you can have a good meal with at a diner but at the same flip of a dime, like that, he can be the worst thing you would've never wanted to wake up to. I think the film brilliantly balances the act of making Alonzo Harris a man who you can like and hate for various reasons. I'm sure that when people walked out the theaters when this came up so many different emotions that had be welling up during the runtime were finally let loose and different opinions on Alonzo Harris could be shared. Alonzo seems to want to really teach Jake the lessons of the streets and bring him into the game, its just that Jake's character is infallible. See it. It's an easy watch. Clearly one of the most enjoyable performances captured on film. It could've been a vary different film if they had gone with Sam Jackson as Alonzo and Eminem or Tobey Maguire. Just sayin'