Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Denzel Washington strangles a Los Angeles resident in "Training Day." The film opens in theaters today.

Friday October 5, 2001

Grade:

B-

"Training Day" is a basic no-brain action movie. It features explosions, lots of gunfire and plenty of street talk. It also has about as much depth as a plastic kiddie swimming pool.

At no time in the movie does one feel anything in particular for any of the characters. You see them come and you see them go, like watching target practice with two-dimensional targets. That is the movie's major downfall.

The premise of "Training Day" is a day in the life of police officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke). The day is a special one for rookie Hoyt, because he has this day, and only this day, to prove himself worthy of working on the narcotics force. Hard-edged, 13-year veteran L.A.P.D. officer Detective Sergeant Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), whose practices are anything but by the book, judges Hoyt's competence.

Harris gives Hoyt a crash course in codes of the street and gang activity. At the same time, Hoyt is learning that his superior may be just slightly blurring the lines between legality and corruption.

What is most interesting about this movie is that it weaves the viewer along for the ride with loose-cannon cop Harris, without ever really explaining why things happen. The viewer ends up just as perplexed and morally crossed as the rookie Hoyt, and everyone, including Hoyt, slowly begins to question whom to trust.

Aesthetically, the film is well shot, and some of the special effects that simulate scenarios work very nicely. For instance, Hoyt is forced to smoke a bowl of PCP-laced marijuana. The viewer then sees life through the eyes of Hoyt as everything becomes eerily distorted.

The film also boosts a slew of celebrity cameos. Macy Gray puts on a believable performance as a drug-addled housewife. Dr. Dre shows up as a one of Harris' police partners. However, the film's best cameo comes from none other than Snoop Dogg, who is perfectly cast as a disabled, chromed-out wheelchair pushing crack-rock dealer. What the movie industry needs is more Snoop Dogg pushing crack, less Robert Downey smoking it.

What does not work with this picture is the lack of parallel story development. Halfway through the main plotline, a major development unravels, but goes fully unexplained and undescribed in great detail, and the audience is supposed to believe it as truth at a point when every truth is already in question.

The character development also needs some serious retooling. The audience gets no background information about Harris, except that he is more tense than Mike Tyson in a spelling bee. Harris is portrayed as a gung-ho, anything-goes cop, but the audience never finds out why, nor what lead him to this particular way of life.

Little to no background is divulged about Hoyt either, except that he has a wife who he looks forward to seeing him at the end of every day.

As far as identifying with these characters and their struggles, one feels more sympathy with the pimple-faced teen in the theater's lobby serving Goobers over the candy counter while his friends walk by and jeer than any one person in this movie.

It's not the actors' faults. Hawke and Washington give average performances, although not quite near what either is capable of, especially Washington. Remember "Glory" or "Malcolm X"?

This movie is not trying to change the action genre or alter anything in particular. It is simply a B-level action movie with some cool explosions and Snoop Dogg peddling crack.

It might be worth the trip just to see that.