| Reviews & Columns |
|
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
 DVD Talk Forum |
|
|
| Resources |
|
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
|
Columns
  
 
|
|
|
Training Day (HD DVD)
Warner Bros. // R // May 9, 2006 // Region 0
List Price: $28.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The fast track to making detective is to work narcotics, and wide-eyed rookie Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is determined to grab that brass ring. Undercover narc Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) owns the drug-addled streets of Los Angeles, and he gives Jake a day to prove that he has what it takes to join his squad. Alonzo fills his erstwhile partner in on Rule One of this urban jungle: weakness is death. He may be universally disliked, but no one's brash 
enough to make a move against Alonzo. He holds something over seemingly everyone, lording over the mean streets and ruthlessly seizing whatever he decides he needs as the mood strikes him. No, Alonzo doesn't exactly play it by the book, as Jake quickly learns when he's forced by this narcotics officer at gunpoint to puff on PCP-laced pot.
Alonzo believes his badge makes him the ultimate arbitor of what is right and wrong, and regardless of what unrealistic regulations some desk jockey detached from the streets may have scribbled into a book, he knows the ends justify his unconventional means. He works narcotics, so he ignores the noise of muggings and rape. Let the little fish peddle dimebags as long as they feed you the right info when you need it. Drug money is just the result of subhuman addicts giving other subhumans stacks of twenties, so what's the harm in skimming off the top a little? Alonzo is responsible for innumerable arrests and thousands upon thousands of manhours of prison time, and he has no trouble sleeping at night. Jake buys into Alonzo's gospel, but just as Jake has his eye on a bigger payday so he can move his cute wife and newborn daughter into a nicer house, Alonzo has an elaborate scheme cooking, and his rookie shadow is its linchpin.
Although Jake is the hero of the piece, he's not strictly some young, impossibly idealistic rookie. He's self-serving too, more interested in advancing his career and being able to fork over a downpayment for a bigger and better home than making Los Angeles a safer place to live. Sure, he likes to play hero, and there's a line he refuses to cross, but I'm also left thinking his descent would have been quite a bit steeper if Alonzo had more than a few hours to hammer away at him. I would've liked to have seen that moral ambiguity played up more since Jake is kind of the bland straight-man for so much of the movie, reacting rather than acting, but Hawke does a commendable job keeping his character from fading into the background.
Ethan Hawke may have been a good choice to play the white hat, but Training Day is defined by Denzel Washington's performance. Washington has carved a career out of playing the stoic, morally upright hero, and he seems to relish this chance to play against type. He brings his usual intensity to Alonzo, and as over-the-top as he can be at times, Washington reins himself in just enough to keep his character from devolving into a cariacture. Not only does he carry Training Day largely on his shoulders, but he keeps it engaging even though so much of the movie is just spent with fairly repetitive scenes with Alonzo and Jake chatting about "...by any means necessary" street justice in a confiscated tricked-out Monte Carlo.
Washington is so damn arresting
that his performance blinds me to many of Training Day's flaws -- suspension, disbelief, that whole routine -- but it's awfully hard to ignore the drastic turns the movie takes in its final act. Bear in mind that although Training Day is most easily labeled an action movie, there really aren't the stock chase scenes, big explosions, or ridiculously over-the-top shootouts that define the genre. There are a couple of brutal, bloody fights, and several scenes are peppered with gunplay, but Training Day maintains the intensity of an action movie without leaning on the usual crutches...until the last fifteen or twenty minutes. The finale makes up for lost time by adopting just about every cliché there is, from a rooftop chase all the way down to gun-toting Russian Mafiosi.
I've read some scathing criticisms of Training Day, and although I acknowledge some of those problems, I find myself sucked in enough by the movie (or, more accurately, by Denzel Washington's performance) to shrug most of them off. It's briskly paced, hardly feeling like a two hour movie, well-cast, and a welcome change of pace from your average, vapid, insubstantial action flick. Recommended.
Video: I'm not quite as floored by this 2.39:1 high definition presentation of Training Day as most of the people on the message boards I read seem to be, especially regarding its black levels, but there's still little doubt that this is one of the most impressive looking HD DVDs available at present. Videophiles who constantly harp about film grain will be pleased to learn that there's little of it here, but the image hasn't been softened or attacked with DVNR to give it that smooth, video-like appearance. No, the level of detail is almost astonishing at times, and that's with me viewing it on a 768p plasma; I'd be intensely curious to see how this disc looks on a 1080p display. Color saturation is equally impressive, especially with as much as the movie likes to play with various styles of lighting. Although my expectations may have been unreasonably high after sifting through the fawning praise this HD DVD has inspired on various home theater forums, there's no question that this is an exceptional presentation, and if we're getting discs like this within a few weeks of the format's launch, I'm eager to see what the future holds.
Audio: Training Day is the second HD DVD to include a Dolby TrueHD track, although the hardware doesn't quite exist yet to do anything meaningful with it, at least for the moment. Oh well. The Dolby Digital Plus
5.1 track is a more than suitable substitute in the meantime, serving up some thunderously low frequencies from the bass-heavy score and gunplay, and the immersive, directional surrounds are used often and effectively. Despite that occasional bombast, dialogue is generally the focus of Training Day, and it's never overpowered by other elements of the mix. A 5.1 Québécois French track and a stereo Spanish dub are also provided, as are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.
Supplements: All of the extras have been ported over from the 2002 DVD release, including an audio commentary with Antoine Fuqua in which the director comments on the sense of authenticity he wanted to bring to this project and how much of his life and experiences were incorporated into it. Some of the deleted scenes humanize Alonzo perhaps more than the final cut would like, and a marginally lengthened alternate ending is also offered. Other extras include a slightly meatier than usual HBO "First Look" EPK, a pair of music videos ("#1" by Nelly and "Got You" by Pharoahe Monch), and an anamorphic widescreen theatrical trailer.
Conclusion: Training Day is among the most visually impressive of the fifteen or so HD DVDs available as I write this, and that demo-worthy video coupled with Denzel Washington's intense performance in a rare turn as a villain leave this disc at the very least deserving of a rental.
Please note that the images in this review were lifted from one of Warner's official Training Day sites. They're just meant to be eye candy and aren't necessarily representative of the way this HD DVD looks.
enough to make a move against Alonzo. He holds something over seemingly everyone, lording over the mean streets and ruthlessly seizing whatever he decides he needs as the mood strikes him. No, Alonzo doesn't exactly play it by the book, as Jake quickly learns when he's forced by this narcotics officer at gunpoint to puff on PCP-laced pot. Alonzo believes his badge makes him the ultimate arbitor of what is right and wrong, and regardless of what unrealistic regulations some desk jockey detached from the streets may have scribbled into a book, he knows the ends justify his unconventional means. He works narcotics, so he ignores the noise of muggings and rape. Let the little fish peddle dimebags as long as they feed you the right info when you need it. Drug money is just the result of subhuman addicts giving other subhumans stacks of twenties, so what's the harm in skimming off the top a little? Alonzo is responsible for innumerable arrests and thousands upon thousands of manhours of prison time, and he has no trouble sleeping at night. Jake buys into Alonzo's gospel, but just as Jake has his eye on a bigger payday so he can move his cute wife and newborn daughter into a nicer house, Alonzo has an elaborate scheme cooking, and his rookie shadow is its linchpin.
Although Jake is the hero of the piece, he's not strictly some young, impossibly idealistic rookie. He's self-serving too, more interested in advancing his career and being able to fork over a downpayment for a bigger and better home than making Los Angeles a safer place to live. Sure, he likes to play hero, and there's a line he refuses to cross, but I'm also left thinking his descent would have been quite a bit steeper if Alonzo had more than a few hours to hammer away at him. I would've liked to have seen that moral ambiguity played up more since Jake is kind of the bland straight-man for so much of the movie, reacting rather than acting, but Hawke does a commendable job keeping his character from fading into the background.
Ethan Hawke may have been a good choice to play the white hat, but Training Day is defined by Denzel Washington's performance. Washington has carved a career out of playing the stoic, morally upright hero, and he seems to relish this chance to play against type. He brings his usual intensity to Alonzo, and as over-the-top as he can be at times, Washington reins himself in just enough to keep his character from devolving into a cariacture. Not only does he carry Training Day largely on his shoulders, but he keeps it engaging even though so much of the movie is just spent with fairly repetitive scenes with Alonzo and Jake chatting about "...by any means necessary" street justice in a confiscated tricked-out Monte Carlo.
Washington is so damn arresting
that his performance blinds me to many of Training Day's flaws -- suspension, disbelief, that whole routine -- but it's awfully hard to ignore the drastic turns the movie takes in its final act. Bear in mind that although Training Day is most easily labeled an action movie, there really aren't the stock chase scenes, big explosions, or ridiculously over-the-top shootouts that define the genre. There are a couple of brutal, bloody fights, and several scenes are peppered with gunplay, but Training Day maintains the intensity of an action movie without leaning on the usual crutches...until the last fifteen or twenty minutes. The finale makes up for lost time by adopting just about every cliché there is, from a rooftop chase all the way down to gun-toting Russian Mafiosi. I've read some scathing criticisms of Training Day, and although I acknowledge some of those problems, I find myself sucked in enough by the movie (or, more accurately, by Denzel Washington's performance) to shrug most of them off. It's briskly paced, hardly feeling like a two hour movie, well-cast, and a welcome change of pace from your average, vapid, insubstantial action flick. Recommended.
Video: I'm not quite as floored by this 2.39:1 high definition presentation of Training Day as most of the people on the message boards I read seem to be, especially regarding its black levels, but there's still little doubt that this is one of the most impressive looking HD DVDs available at present. Videophiles who constantly harp about film grain will be pleased to learn that there's little of it here, but the image hasn't been softened or attacked with DVNR to give it that smooth, video-like appearance. No, the level of detail is almost astonishing at times, and that's with me viewing it on a 768p plasma; I'd be intensely curious to see how this disc looks on a 1080p display. Color saturation is equally impressive, especially with as much as the movie likes to play with various styles of lighting. Although my expectations may have been unreasonably high after sifting through the fawning praise this HD DVD has inspired on various home theater forums, there's no question that this is an exceptional presentation, and if we're getting discs like this within a few weeks of the format's launch, I'm eager to see what the future holds.
Audio: Training Day is the second HD DVD to include a Dolby TrueHD track, although the hardware doesn't quite exist yet to do anything meaningful with it, at least for the moment. Oh well. The Dolby Digital Plus
5.1 track is a more than suitable substitute in the meantime, serving up some thunderously low frequencies from the bass-heavy score and gunplay, and the immersive, directional surrounds are used often and effectively. Despite that occasional bombast, dialogue is generally the focus of Training Day, and it's never overpowered by other elements of the mix. A 5.1 Québécois French track and a stereo Spanish dub are also provided, as are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. Supplements: All of the extras have been ported over from the 2002 DVD release, including an audio commentary with Antoine Fuqua in which the director comments on the sense of authenticity he wanted to bring to this project and how much of his life and experiences were incorporated into it. Some of the deleted scenes humanize Alonzo perhaps more than the final cut would like, and a marginally lengthened alternate ending is also offered. Other extras include a slightly meatier than usual HBO "First Look" EPK, a pair of music videos ("#1" by Nelly and "Got You" by Pharoahe Monch), and an anamorphic widescreen theatrical trailer.
Conclusion: Training Day is among the most visually impressive of the fifteen or so HD DVDs available as I write this, and that demo-worthy video coupled with Denzel Washington's intense performance in a rare turn as a villain leave this disc at the very least deserving of a rental.
Please note that the images in this review were lifted from one of Warner's official Training Day sites. They're just meant to be eye candy and aren't necessarily representative of the way this HD DVD looks.
|
| Popular Reviews |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
|
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices 
| |||||||