Training Day (2017)

Bruckheimer assembly-line sausage stuffed with plenty of hooey and violence--but the leads are plenty appealing.

Smoothing off some of the rogue cop’s edges, ironically, makes Paxton’s acting job more difficult. He has keep reminding us that he’s contemptuous of many law enforcement standards while at the same time throwing out hints he still harbors some deep and real humanity.Roarke sometimes lurches a little from this balancing act, at least in the early going, and that can throw off other characters as well.

The question with any movie turned into a series is whether the concept has the legs to last on an episodic basis. Evaluating the first few patrols, that's the key test that Training Day doesn't pass.

Paxton steals just about every scene he’s in.

Truth is, Training Day could stand being a little uglier. [30 Jan - 12 Feb 2017, p.19]

A toothless gruel of police-procedural cliches and focus-grouped mediocrity...This show ain't got s--- on King Kong. [Feb 3/10 2017, p.101]

Mr. Paxton gets to deliver the best lines and blow the most stuff up. Wry and swaggering, he’s the only one having any fun here, which pushes the audience to Frank’s side. In this formulaic “cop who won’t play by the book” setup, the book doesn’t stand a chance.

Though nothing in Training Day, including the partnership of Frank and Kyle, is quite as simple as it first seems, what I saw in three episodes wasn't intriguing enough to make me crave a fourth, or to understand exactly why CBS thought now was the time to glorify the kind of police officer who thinks laws are for other people.

The problem with "Training Day" as a series is that it wants to be reassuringly safe and disturbingly dangerous at the same time, and this duality proves its undoing. The strain of this balancing act is felt in the unconvincing, sometimes cartoonish dialogue, direction and performances.