Training Day 
Review & The Shield: Review
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Training Day: Review & The Shield: Review
Sunday 05.05.2002
alice ttlg || 04:17 PM || trackback
Training Day is like Schindler's List, harsh and starkly depressing in its portrayal of the cruelty and evil that human beings are capable of, not enjoyable or entertaining to watch...
Schindler's List was real, Training Day is fiction but still it captures something real. Maybe that cop that Denzel Washington portrays isn't real, maybe no cop is really like that, but the reality portrayed in the film does exist. Training Day is the kind of reality somewhere beyond the white middle class easy-to-live-in world. It's the kind of reality where blacks get stopped for DWB, where the cop is not necessarily the good guy and all people really want is some place safe to live and they don't care if it's the cops or the gangs or the drug dealer at the corner who gives them that safe place as long as they can get it. It's all the gangsta rap songs and videos and movies ever made but stripped of any glamour or glitz or harmonies, leaving a black and white snapshot of a day in the life of the real thing.
And so it's a depressing movie, worth watching like Schindler's List, the kind of movie we should all see, to open our eyes and be aware that reality is not the same for everyone. And as much as Denzel Washington deserved his Oscar, so did Ethan Hawke, for riding the line between naivety and looking stupid, for making the character three dimensional instead of the cardboard cutout of a gallant hero. I will add that there are some weak moments in the movie, mainly at the end, which disintegrates into a standard bad cop/gangster movie but the strength of the rest of the movie and the brilliant performances of Denzel and Ethan more than make up for that.
The Shield is the TV series version of Training Day...I hadn't seen Training Day when I first watched the pilot of The Shield so I didn't realize it till now, catching on the eps I've taped, watching the pilot again, and that's exactly what it is. Whether or not it can live up to the movie, I have yet to decide (haven't seen all the eps yet! :)). Training Day portrayed a flawed, corrupt and conflicted man who started out as a good guy, never quite sure how he ended up where he was, doing the things he did, knowing that it's wrong but believing that it's the only way he can do his job, the only way he can protect the people he's supposed to protect.
While Michael Chiklis has certainly done a complete 180 from his role in the Commish and is doing a great job at portraying Mackey, I'm waiting to see if the writers can give him the same kind of depth that Denzel's Alonzo Harris had in the movie, keep Mackey human, give us a reason to care about him, show that path from wanting to do the right thing to where he is now, give us a sense that he understands the conflict, being a cop but acting like a criminal and how he justifies that to himself...
So back to watching more episodes!
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