Called the easiest category: Trejo could have played all five guys in the poker scene, with CGI, any of the dirty cops, Alonzo or Jake Hoyt, everyone except the three wise men; a David Ayer L.A. crime movie is where Danny Trejo eats.
A Google search for why Danny Trejo was not in Training Day found nothing definitive; it is called a slight, he must have seen it and wondered, and he could have been Dr. Dre's partner or the waiter in the diner.
The phoned-in take: Trejo cannot be in every movie, but of all movies this one would have made too much sense, a scene with Mexican gangsters where you would ask how many lines he has; he probably took another movie where his head gets cut off, since this was too arty, and a CGI version of him playing everybody at the poker table is floated.
Dr. Dre's performance was bad then and is worse now that there is more history with him; it was a miscast, in sharp relief against Snoop, who won that head-to-head.
Macy Gray's appearance was not bad but sticks out like a sore thumb because she is no longer part of the culture the way Snoop and Dre are.
The opening family scene with Jake's wife feels like something added after a test screening to get a strong female character, a weird, bad first five minutes with bad dialogue about bringing it and making the shield, though it may set up his return home at the end.
The Dr. Dre needle drop and the film's L.A. feel; the two lead performances; the anti-hero crime storytelling that anticipated The Shield; Fuqua's modern, propulsive direction; Ethan Hawke's career moment
Hearing the Dr. Dre song takes one host straight back to 2001, the second decade of hip hop, with Dre then turning up in the movie later; the music and the legitimately L.A. feel are that host's pick.
The two performances discussed for thirty minutes still work perfectly; the film sits close to where TV was heading, the anti-hero era of The Shield that became consistent in cop and drug-dealer stories, and the Denzel performance splits the difference between that and the Sidney Lumet and French Connection documentary grit of the 70s, in a period with fewer crime movies than anyone in the room would like.
The direction is totally modern with nothing dated, like Fight Club; Fuqua is slick and bright, Hollywood dirty, with great pace and propulsive movies even when they are not good, a cross between Michael Bay and William Friedkin, and the locations are authentic even though parts of this movie do not hang together.
Ethan Hawke has aged nicely, this being the next step after Reality Bites, Before Sunrise and Gattaca; they will give him an Oscar at 70 for a grand old man performance even though he deserved one for six or seven movies, like a player who never won the MVP but could have.
