USA TODAY International Edition
CBS’ retread of ‘ Training Day’ makes wrong moves
So you know those people who seem to think our big cities are all just one huge crime cesspool, and the only way to fix them is to let the cops run wild?
Detritus like Training Day ( CBS, Thursday, 10 ET/ PT, out of four) could be where they’re getting the idea.
Even if you don’t believe that, there are other excellent reasons to avoid this latest failed attempt to cash in on a popular movie title. This show, set 15 years after the events of the 2001 Denzel Washington film, is yet another sequel trying to get by without the film’s Oscar- winning star. And producers have an unfortunate knack for hiring fine actors and then either completely wasting them or, as in the case of star Bill Paxton, allowing or encouraging them to indulge in their worst scenery- chewing instincts.
In this version of the story, which owes as much to The Shield as it does to the original film, Paxton plays detective Frank Rourke, the dedicated head of a rogue LAPD special unit.
His new trainee, Kyle Craig ( Justin Cornwell), is an idealistic young African- American — a racial reversal on the movie’s pair- ing of Washington with Ethan Hawke that either counts as a new idea or as a return to stereotypical cop show form.
Frank ( who is flawed, but of course heroic) is willing to accept the training assignment because Kyle is the son of his late, beloved partner. He doesn’t know Kyle’s actually a spy for Deputy Chief Joy Lockhart ( Marianne JeanBaptiste), who’s determined to take down Frank.
And Joy doesn’t know Kyle’s real goal is to learn who was responsible for his father’s death.
But first he must learn, to paraphrase one of Frank’s rules, that police work is like sex: It’s a lot better if it’s not pretty. According to Frank, that means it’s fine to set a suspect’s house on fire, or torture a man by zapping his testicles with an electric charge, or do anything to make sure that people Frank believes unworthy of trials don’t get one.
Cornwell does the best with what he’s given, but no actor should be given as many variations on “I will not go along with this” as he is.
If you need a new drinking game, just try counting them. With Paxton, on the other hand, it’s hard to tell whether he’s working too hard or enjoying himself too much.
Every scene seems to bounce between crazed and earnest with half the lines delivered in a soft breathy tone designed to make even the silliest seem fraught with meaning. Like everything else in the show, including an homage to the Alamo, it doesn’t work.
But hey, there’s a decent movie out there by the same name. Its message may not be much more pro- social, but it does have Washington.
Renting that would be a much better idea.