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List Price: $14.96 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 910
Released: June 1, 2004 |
| Our Price: $3.77 |
| Used Price: $1.16 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Working undercover is a job. And an attitude. A mad dog narco cop blurs the line between cop and criminal as he mentors an idealistic rookie partner during his Training Day.Running Time: 120 min.System Requirements:Starring: Ethan Hawke Denzel Washington Cliff Curtis Snoop Dogg Dr. Dre and Scott Glenn. Directed By: Antoine Fuqua. Running Time: 122 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2002 Warner Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 085392196227 Manufacturer No: 21962DVD
Description of Training Day:
A powerhouse performance by Denzel Washington fuels this brutal urban police drama, in which a rookie narcotics cop learns the hard way that even good cops can go very, very bad. Washington plays veteran detective Alonzo Harris, a self-proclaimed "wolf among wolves," eager to teach his rookie partner Jake (Ethan Hawke) that normal rules don't apply on the mean streets of Los Angeles. Caught in a web of deception, Jake watches with escalating horror as Alonzo uses his badge (and the support of his superiors) to justify a self-righteous policy of corruption. In stark contrast to most of his previous work, Denzel unleashes his dark side with fearlessness and fury, and the result is excellence without compromise. Director Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers) won't score any points for subtlety, but gritty details (including actual L.A. gang members as extras) and Hawke's finely tuned performance are perfectly matched to Washington's frightening volatility. --Jeff Shannon
Training Day Reviews:
It Was Okay, Maybe A Bit Better, Maybe A Bit Worse 
2008-10-07 - I was torn about this movie for one fact - I really like Denzel Washington as an actor and if I see his name associated with a movie I will see it because I expect good things from him. And with the hype about this movie when it came out, I walked away from the theater a bit unsatisfied.
When he received an Oscar for this role (as oppossed to some other movies) I felt the same way the I did when Russell Crowe received one for Gladiator and not A Beautiful Mind. But that seems to happen at the Oscars.
Both Hawke and Washington turn in overall good performances (I think Hawke was better based on his role) about corruption in a police department, where Denzel is knee deep in it.
There were some very good scenes, but I did find that the movie dragged a bit. And when things became really heated during the second half of the movie, some of the scenes to me were a bit over the top/drawn out. I understand that there is a suspension of belief for these things, but it seemed to be just a bit too much.
Watching it again on DVD changed my mind a bit and I enjoyed it more than in the movies, but perhaps it is because my expectations had changed somewhat. It is probably somewhere between 3-1/2 to 4, and since I was probably a bit skewed in my initial impressions based on what I expected, and which may have carried over, it probably is a 4.
What was the hype? 
2008-09-01 - I finally sat down and watched this film and was left with a feeling of "ok?"
Denzel Washington does a great job in his role. He is fun to watch as he took Jake Hoyt(Hawke) through a day on the streets of LA to see if he will fit in his Narcotics unit. Washington does a good job playing an amoral character as he toys to with Jake to see how far he will go into the dark side and make amoral choices.
Times I was wondering if Alonzo is simply evil or a master of the mind screw as he seems to be testing Jake.
There are many tense scenes but overall the script is not that great as it seems to center on Alonzo posturing. Even in the end I did not finding myself disliking Alonzo which I think was the intent of the writer. Overall, the script was not tight. What of the amoral men of Alonzo's unit? Would they not go after Jake? The corrupt officials you see in one scene? Many questions are left unanswered.
Overall, it's not a bad film. I think it's overrated as even though Washington does a great job; I don't think script was tight enough to have you debating if Alonzo was evil or truly a master at testing how far a person will go.
There are extras and I only looked at a couple of things as the majority did not interest me.
HIGHLY ENTERTAINING GRITTY POLICE DRAMA! 4 1/2 STARS! 
2008-08-29 - 'Training Day' is a dark and gritty crime drama that tells a different side of the men in blue. Denzel Washington takes a 180 and plays one vicious and dirty cop who shows a new recruit on his first day as a special teams narcotics officer how his brand of justice works! The film is slick, well paced, full of action and has a plausible storyline. It goes a little Hollywood towards the end, but it's still an very entertaining movie. The film has an early small role featuring Eva Mendes in her birthday suit, giving us the money shot! Nice huh? ;-b The DVD transfer is excellent and has some interesting extra material.
Can it get more gritty?
2008-08-08 - Great story, Denzel Washington plays great and so does Ethan Hawke. Too much language in it though, its not needed.
Outstanding corrupt cop drama
2008-07-05 - The ending was a bit of overkill. That could be said. And the mano-a-mano fight before the ending was a bit drawn out. That too could be said. But the rest of the film was more than excellent.
"Training Day" is the best of the bad cop dramas that I have seen, and I've seen a few. Both Denzel Washington as the psychopathic bad cop, Alonzo, and Ethan Hawke as the idealistic rookie, Jake, were full out. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance, and Ethan Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The direction by Antoine Fuqua was superb. The LA street scenes and milieu were as real and vivid as my old buddy Taco Bender. (And trust me, Taco Bender was very real.) The extras in the crowd scenes should get some kind of prize for macho scary. I've been there, and I still have a few nightmares. There are some streets in LA you don't want to walk down unless you are a homey, or a brother, and some other streets you don't want to walk down, period.
Unlike some cop dramas and shoot `em up thrillers, this one was carefully planned, so that the scene in the barrio at the card table, the rook all alone set up for the kill, came across as real because what had happened before was just about the only thing in the world that could have saved him. The LA atmosphere was like a rush, as stunningly authentic in a different way as, say, that in Chinatown (1974) or LA Confidential (1997), but more contemporary.
I wonder how many guys starting in say the sixties or maybe a little before have experienced the kind of initiation that Jake experiences in terms of being fed some dope never before tasted and then "led" on the "trip" by someone wanting to exploit them. Most of the time, for most guys it was an initiation into something other worldly, scary, but something that was only psychological and would be gone the next day. For Jake it was a matter of, first, his livelihood as an idealistic cop, and second a matter of groking to a paranoid view of the world in which the good guys are the bad guys and everything is hopelessly corrupt and there is no good, only evil--and you just found out. And third, a matter of life and death with either acid and grass running all around your brain or maybe PCP and speed, and some suddenly obviously evil person (as Washington so well depicted) giving you the kind of "guidance" you can't refuse. And then finally it is beyond life and death and only a matter of primeval justice and a revenge you must perform.
Look for Snoop Dogg in a wheelchair and Dr. Dre as one of Alonzo's posse cops.
