comment #1

actionman says ...

I loved, loved, loved this film but I am not sure how many times I would re-watch it; another viewing or two I suppose. I'd certainly watch it with friends who have never seen it just so I can see their reaction to Del Toro. That said, I will certainly pick up the dvd and I look forward to savoring Del Toro's performance a few more times.

comment #2

lazespud says ...

I haven't seen it yet; and I look forward to it. Both Jeff and Actionman definately have tasted and that's a plus in my book, but isn't it just possible that a lot of the critics saw the film and weren't moved by del Toro the way you two were? The movie got a 65% on the tomato meter, which is indicative that pretty sizable group didn't much like the movie...

It would seem to me that this is a much more likely explanation as to why his performance wasn't nominated than an explanation about hollywood insider obsequiousness...

comment #3

adaml says ...

Washington in Training Day????!!!!

Is he kidding?

Everyone knows that was a good performance at best that only won because it was "let's atone for past sins and give the black people an Oscar" year.

comment #4

Dzayson says ...

Benicio shoulda been nominated, no question. Every Oscar handicapper wrote that DDL's There Will Be Blood performance was the unstoppable powerhouse of the decade (or some other hyperbole), but I wonder if things would have turned out differently had Del Toro scored a nomination. Gotta figure he's the odds-on favorite to win this year, as the Academy loves to hand out mea culpa awards. Which is not to say that he won't be brilliant as Che.

comment #5

gruver1 says ...

Wells to lazespud: The masterful nature of Del Toro's performance in this film is incontestable. Even the critics that went negative about the film admitted that Del Toro's Jerry was pretty darn exceptional.

comment #6

adorian says ...

Didn't Time magazine just give the movie an F? I don't understand the wide spilt on this film, but I will be renting it tomorrow morning.

comment #7

Jeremy Smith says ...

Wells is right. I thought the film was boilerplate prestige nonsense, but Del Toro's performance was beautiful. The film's a must-see just for him (though I also loved John Carroll Lynch as the unhappily married neighbor).

comment #8

MarkVH says ...

Speaking of recovering heroin addicts, I'm sure Benicio's work here is beautiful (it usually is), but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to think of that kind of subject matter in the same way after watching Andre Royo's soulful, devastating performance in last night's episode of The Wire (the second-to-last ever). We've harped on Wells too much for not watching the show, but I couldn't let the opportunity go by without mentioning it. Some of the best acting you'll ever see - movies, TV or elsewhere.

comment #9

malibugigolo says ...

Paramount did the best they could with this by the numbers Lifetime Movie script.

That to distract from the banal story, instead of making the story in the past say Victorian Age with corsets and the such
they put non-whites as leads (but still striving to meet the white Prod middle class ideal without questioning it) and hire a foregin director of which English isn't her first language.

The story is trite, and fit for cable.

The cynical way the studio dressed this story befit its reception.

Null and void.

No drug addict is good with children, or looks as "pretty" as Del Toro, expecting people do believe such silliness, is absurd.

comment #10

lazespud says ...

lazespud to wells --

Well I definately look forward to seeing it then; I tend to agree with your opinions most of the time... (with a few pretty major exceptions!) and I think adami doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. I was absolutely floored by Washington in Training Day; the only reason people thought he might NOT get the oscar that year was because the movie was basically a genre piece, but I never thought for a minute that the award was a "let's atone for past sins" award...

But that was a truly awesome performance; it's just discounted because of the genre of the film; look past that and you'll see the best performance of one of our best actors...

comment #11

adaml says ...

lazespud,

No one I know agrees with your assessment. Not only was it not award worthy, he was nominated in the wrong category just to make an even bigger joke of things. Ethan Hawke had more screen time and ended up in supporting.

And Tom Wilkinson was approximately 37 times better in In the Bedroom anyway, not to mention the non-nominated likes of Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast.

At least Washington wasn't absolutely dreadful like Halle Berry. Now that was an even bigger joke.

comment #12

jjgittes says ...

I love Washington in "Training Day" - I love when actors go "outside the lines" like that - that's some of his most inspired and least "rigid" work.

But it's not an all-time performance, and neither is Del Toro's. He great, but "landmark"? I don't see it myself - I may have given him a nod this year, but it would have been behind DDL, Frank Langella and the guy in the Russian penis movie.

Also wouldn't be so quick to toss that Oscar to Del Toro in '08. He's got a great role.......ok, but he's got an Oscar, and he's only 41.....I am a fan, but, something tells me it won't be his year in '08.

comment #13

lipranzer says ...

I don't think Del Toro is landmark either, but I think he's very good, as is Berry, in THINGS. I even liked Allison Lohman as Del Toro's fellow addict. And I'm sorry, but I think it's better than a "Lifetime" movie. If the movie was as trite as you all say, it wouldn't have had that scene after Del Toro teaches Berry's son how to swim, where she lashes out at him because it should have been her husband doing that.

I will concede David Duchovny's character was too good to be true, but I'm not a big fan of his in general.

comment #14

Discman says ...

I feel strongly about this film and am squarely in Wells' camp. I've tried to sell my friends on the flick, but they can't get past the nature of the nature of the story, which *does* sound like a telepic, and dive in to witness the great performances (I like Berry quite a bit in the movie, although her breakdown scene was a near fatal distraction).

Thing about this movie that fascinates: religion. I'd venture to say that Duchovny's character is Christ-like in many ways. "Too good to be true" as another post-er here said, and that may be the point. Guy's a saint. But note the early exchange where he tells his kid that he's "illuminated" from within -- a very Christian notion. And the idea of rebirth, or second chances, runs throughout the film (the video store in the background of a couple of scenes is called Second Act, IIRC). There's no real talk of God -- but this is a movie about personal redemption. Viewers can choose to see it in strictly humanistic terms, and it still works beautifully.

But Wells does Del Toro a bit of disservice by neglecting this aspect of the actor's masterful turn here. Note the importance of that Serenity Prayer to his fellow recovering female junkie. She asks why he won't stay. He won't. He can't. And in the closing moments, in that amazing scene where Del Toro directly addresses the camera, he calls drugs his "salvation" or something similar, as if the drugs are his god, and he knows he's not in a place where he can rightly acknowledge a Higher Power. Those drugs still own him in some way.

The raw emotional and spiritual honesty of those closing moments put this film into the stratosphere. It's amazing. And a scene of reconciliation involving one of the children and Del Toro late in the film is deeply moving.

With all that, most of the critical response has been to dismiss the film as "Oscar bait." Their loss. Over at the House Next Door, Keith Uhlich and Matt Zoller Seitz linked to a snarky review of the film shortly after its release, and when I objected in the comments, Matt responded that he just found the review amusing, even though he hadn't seen the film.

Shame.

comment #15

insidah says ...

i read a positive review on collider.com

comment #16

houmas says ...

Washington was brilliant in Training Day, in a much more freewheeling way than he usually is. I never realised just how good he was till I saw it again recently, and he literally sends sparks off the screen. The film however, is not as good as his performance (especially the 3rd act, where it goes to hell). It's not anywhere close to being his deepest or most emotionally resonant performance, but probably his most viscerally exciting and fun. And it holds up. It's pretty much his Scarface...cool as shit, quotable as hell ("King Kong ain't got shit on me") and kinda livewire and amusing at the same time. If he hadn't won the Oscar, I'm pretty certain it'd be a massive cult favorite as a performance anyway. In fact, like Scarface, it's the type of performance that would have probably fared better long-term in the court of internet blogger opinion, if it hadn't won any sort of major awards. Then everyone would be lining up to say how amazing and underrated it was. Whether you like it or not, it's not a performance you're likely to ever forget. It's one of those "big" performances that always put a smile on my face, for it's sheer chutzpah. It's no Malcolm X, but it's more fun.

I don't think Pacino's Scarface is an "all-time great" performance either (not compared to his actual best work in Godfather and Dog Day's Afternoon anyway), but there's something visceral and exciting about it, despite it being incredibly broad and verging on caricature at times. It's just so bloody fun and watchable, that I never really get tired of watching him sneering and going for broke in that film. Robert Duvall may have won a deserved Oscar for Tender Mercies that year, in a more subtle and emotionally heartfelt performance, but 20 years later, it's Scarface that people still remember.

Whether he won the Oscar or not, Washington's performance probably had a longer shelf life in memory, than any other that year (including Wilkinson and Winstone). It's also a performance that raised Washington's stock as a pop cultural icon, in a way something po-faced and "oscarbait" like THe Hurricane or Courage Under Fire never could

comment #17

houmas says ...

And also, now that I think of it, there is a "landmark" element to Washtington's performance in Training Day, despite it not being his personal best work. If you ask the average joe who the definitive "corrupt evil bastard cop" in modern cinema is, I'm betting a big (possibly majority) percentage would say Denzel Washington in Training Day. He kinda set the bar pretty high with that particular type of character. I think Harvey Kietel gave the best single performance as a "corrupt bastard cop" in Bad Lieutenant, but alas, it never made the same sort of cultural impact. In a sense, it's a very iconic character that Denzel created.

Who else is there? Gary Oldman in Leon, Ray Liotta in Narc, Kurt Russell in Dark Blue, James Cromwell in LA Confidential, most of the actors in Copland, Pacino in The Recruit, Gary Oldman in Romeo Is Bleeding, Matt Damon in The Departed, Treat Williams in Prince Of The City, Cuba Gooding jr in Dirty, Nick Nolte in Q & A, Josh Brolin in American Gangster, Richard Gere in Internal Affairs, Gary Sinise in Ransome.

Some pretty fine modern actors have taken on the "dirty, unrepentent bastard corrupt cop", and none of them with quite the same impact as Denzel in Training Day. Though my personal favorite dirty copper, is an oldie (the magnificent Orson Welles, as a corpulent and utterly corrupt cop in Touch Of Evil).

comment #18

I,Claudius says ...

Such hyperbole.

comment #19

MilkMan says ...

I don't get the whole Cult of Del Toro. Fine actor, but why people go gaga over his fourth generation Brando-isms is beyond me. And I certainly don't get the backlash (however small and insignificant it may be) over DDL's perf. in TWBB. Actors like Del Toro (and others of his ilk - Gosling, Ed Burns, et al) endlessly mine the same small patch of land with diminishing results; Del Toro in Things We Lost in the Fire is the same Del Toro in 21 Grams, and I suspect he's going to play Che (a movie I look forward to about as much as my next lactose-inspired bout of explosive diahrrea) in the same manner, half-droswy, lost in thought as to what to say next, only with an accent, a perf I no doubt will garner him one award after the next. Del Toro, in his characterizations, is still interested in retaining a sense of Del Toro-ness; he doesn't want to disappear too much lest he diminish what some like to call his (ugh) "smoldering, slow-burn sexuality." In other words, Del Toro, as the per the m.o. of most big-time male movie stars, still wants to play to the wet panty crowd, and this is what will forever prevent him from creating a newly minted character, unlike DDL, who, in his perfomances, simply IS NOT THERE. DDL right now is DeNiro circa 74-83, Welles from Touch of Evil until Chimes at Midnight, Olivier at his best. DDL can do what Del Toro can do. I don't think it takes any great leap of imagination to put DDL in Things We Lost.... On the other hand, just try imagining Del Toro as Daniel Plainview. I can't. What I can imagine is a typically overwrought Del Toro perf. a la his atrociously overacted cameo in The Pledge. If DDL is the best we have, and I think he is, then we have it pretty damn good.