Rating: 
Summary: Good effect, but violence is a lot.
Review: Today I saw the movie. Story is so so. But I don't like this kind of violent. But many American people laughed about this movie. I was serious. This is culture gap.... maybe... I have to understand American culture.
Rating:
Summary: At least the popcorn was good...
Review: Not to say that this was a horrible movie or a bad one, just not very enjoyable.
It has many elements of a good movie. The acting is solid from start to finish and the movie
is well made for the most part. No aspect of this moves looks or sounds cheap, it is quality
film making.
That said, all this is good but does little to salvage the plot.
It looks promising in the trailer. I sat through to the end with hope that everything would
fall in to place and there would be some moral lesson or revelation by the end.
My friend said; "I hate this movie." and left for the car.
I should have too, as the end was lacking and made what I just paid to see disappointing.
Washington is a great actor, and does a great performance with the role handed to him.
But the character never amounts to anything. He degenerates in to a more and more
vicious and monstrous person. This might have been a story about a cop who uses "street
smarts" on street criminals, but his absence of morality simply makes him a murderer. I
have to wonder if this was really an attempt to tell a tale of law on the streets, but it comes
off as just an excuse to give Washington a chance to be bad. He does and does it well, but
the plot fails him and bogs down the film.
Hawk is also good to see here, but his character seems to be a tag along. He is given little
to do other than to be manipulated by Washington. Clearly Denzel holds all the cards,
there is little Hawk can do but endure the ride. Sadly, so must the audience. As the people
left while the credits rolled (some left before the movie was over) in a somber mood we
had to pay for, there was little talking and no excitement over what we just saw.
The two work well, both good actors, but they are betrayed by a story that fails to achieve
or inspire.
Anyone that likes a gritty tale of drugs, manipulation, gang violence, murder and corruption
will be entertained.
Anyone what wants a enjoyable movie need not apply.
Rating: 
Summary: Training Day
Review: Training Day was a great film. Washington and Hawke combined to make a good cop movie. Both were outstanding and i was really impressed with washington's performance. He proved with this gritty and risky performance that he is one of the best in hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Training Day
Review: Denzel Washington's performance offers further evidence that he might indeed be the best actor currently working at the peak of his talents. Admittedly, though, Washington's performance is the best thing this film has to offer. The story is a fairly conventional good cop/bad cop story involving a special narcotics unit of the LAPD. To me, one problem with the film is that the good cop (Hawke) is a little too good and the bad cop (Washington) a little too bad. If the two cops had been a little more similar, it probaly would have improved the film, because it would be easier to believe that these two men might actually be real Los Angeles cops. Another problem I had with the story is a couple of obviously melodramatic plot symmetries (one involving a crime victim's school ID) that seem very artificial. Director Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers) has an outstanding visual style, but has not yet fully developed his sense of storytelling. As a result, there are some story elements that are not fully executed, and some minor details that are dwelled upon a great length. Hawke is not quite able to hold his own on screen with Washington. TRAINING DAY is not as good a police morality tale as SERPICO, nor does it see into the darkness of the soul of a corrupt cop as ably as BAD LIEUTENANT, nor is it on par with the likes of BOYZ 'N THE HOOD or TAXI DRIVER, but it is fast-paced and entertaining, and Washington's performance, while not his best work, is very good, and should again earn him Oscar consideration.
Rating:
Summary: Oscar Performance by Denzel
Review: Denzel Washington has turned in a number of superior performances, but now is his time. In Training Day, he is by turns humorous, hard, violent, and downright scary -- but always human, despite his character's deeds. Other performances are also very good.
The movie is gritty, tough; language rough but appropriate to the situation. Cinematography good but not outstanding; however, the script is excellent. Conflicts (emotional and otherwise) abound. Never a dull moment.
Rating:
Summary: Denzel shoots for the moon and hits the sun
Review: What is it they say about Paradise Lost? Satan is so much more interesting and charismatic than any other character in Milton's opus. After years of playing the honorable, tough, good man, Denzel gets his shot to cross the line to the darker side of the street, and, going for broke, he burns a hole through the screen, grabbing the audience like no character he's ever played before. The previews outline the plotline with broad brush strokes. Ethan Hawke is the rookie cop who gets a chance to work a day with Denzel's Alonzo Harris, a street tough cop. Ethan wants to move up in the L.A. police force, but will he be corrupted by the brutal methods of Harris, who says "it takes a wolf to catch a wolf"? It doesn't sound like the most original of Hollywood stories, but the script does contain some entertaining scenes. Many will find this movie to be brutally realistic, but I found it to be almost a farce, intentionally over the top. Thankfully, there is Denzel in the center of it all, having the time of his life. Besides Harvey Keitel, Denzel has the most distinctive, rhythmic, and hypnotic speech pattern in American film today. He delivers his lines like a preacher gone mad, his words a sermon of the street. His physical presence completely overshadows Hawke, who looks like a teenager next to the glowering, towering Mr. Washington (and since he is playing the rookie cop, it actually works in this film, though he is also supposed to have been a high school strong safety in the film--hmm, more like the president of the drama club, I think). Unfortunately, the movie that Antoine Fuqua constructs around Denzel disintegrates into silliness at the end, with machine-gun toting Russian mafia, a ridiculous team of Alonzo's henchman that plays like a Benetton ad gone bad, and people hanging off of windshields of moving cars. I left the theater wishing Denzel's performance had been part of a more gifted director's film, but I was grinning with glee that Denzel got to cut loose. The plot may let you down, but see this film to witness one of our more gifted actors taking charge. I was reminded, at times, of Tony Montana from Scarface, having snorted about ten pounds of coke, bursting through the doors holding a gun longer than he was tall, shouting, "Say hello to my little friend!"
Rating:
Summary: Denzel Washington owns this movie
Review: "Training Day" is a movie I was very impressed with. Going in, I was afraid it would be a standard Hollywood cliche of a movie, about the "cop gone over the line." You could say it's still like that a little bit, but two things save it from being too predictable: Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua. First, Fuqua (a fellow Pittsburgher,) takes you along gradually. At the beginning of the film, you empathize with Denzel's character, Det. Sgt. Alonzo Harris. He's in a rough-and-tumble world trying to get things done. As he says "it takes a wolf to catch a wolf." But, over the course of the film, Harris goes further and further over the line. The course of the day (and the film) is a mirror for the course of his career (and his life): He bends the law so far that it's unrecognizeable. By the end, you feel Harris gets what's coming to him, but you still remember what he was trying to do in the beginning. And the key to Det. Harris is Denzel Washington. No one else could've played this part. He is over-the-top when needed, but calm and rational, as well. His performance evolves through the course of the movie, along with his character. This is an amazing performance, and Academy snobs should take note of it. "Training Day" is an excellent movie. In the beginning, it raises some tough questions. Even if, in the end, it comes up with some too-easy answers, that doesn't mean the journey wasn't a blast.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing (and different) police drama
Review: First all, a confession: Denzel Washington is on my list of actors who I'd watch in nearly ANY movie. Luckily, this is a movie well worth watching. Washington seems confident and assured in his portrayal of Detective Sargent Alonzo Harris, a policeman with skewed ethics and methods of confronting the bad guys. Detective Harris not only drinks beer as he drives down the street but forces his rookie sidekick (played by Ethan Hawke) to smoke pot as part of his "training", kills drug pushers in cold blood and comes up with a murder plot for profit. If this sounds less than appealing, all I can say is that you're likely to be as impressed by Washington's performance as I was...he's one of those bad guys you can't resist watching. And if Washington fails to impress, the violence, action and final climax should keep you glued to the screen.
Rating:
Summary: A different role for Washington.
Review: I think that this movie will be great to see simply because Washington is an excellent actor (from my hometown) and I had recently thought to myself that he never really played any semblance to the "the bad guy" (well, besides "Malcolm X" where you might say the beginning versus the end dichotomized his life, or some would always view his character as the bad guy). Not saying that his character in "Training Day" exhibits an array of negative qualities, but he definitely plays the guy in this R-rated movie that upon meeting him, you're not quite sure if you like him yet. He plays a cop that apparently uses any means necessary to get the job done, even unorthodox practices. If Washington pulls this character off, that will score big points for this movie. All we need is a well-developed plot and we have a box office hit.
Rating: 
Summary: I hated this movie
Review: I first of all am not a Denzel Washington fan. So my review is a little biase in the sense that I went in thinking this movie was going to be bad....and boy was it. I first want to say that Denzel Washington is a good actor he just doesn't do anything for me. I thought this movie was waaaayyyy over the top unrealistic and I could not in good consious recommend it. For one thing all the singers and rappers in the movie who can't act took away from any beliveable scenario. Ethan Hawkes character was such a wimp he had literally no back bone. Every "bad" thing that Denzels character wanted him to do he did it. I think this is one of the worse movies I ever seen. And the ending who didn't see that coming a mile away.
|
