In the movie Training Day Denzel Washington’s character Alonzo is a corrupt cop who exploits and takes advantage of his own community to get rich. He could be seen as controversial because as Bogle stated, “a highly sexual man, violent and brutal to the core, preying on his own community” (Pg 394), which make it an issue because most people would see this as harmful to their community and only see black cops as corrupt, greedy, money hungry people who will undermine anyone to get their way. All this being said I have seen the movie and while I do agree with this reasoning, I do believe Washington gives a great performance and really adds layers to this character that we would otherwise not get with a less talented actor.
Will Smith was and still is a very talented actor when he’s willing to be, but when he decides to play it safe is when everything becomes bland and rather unimpressive performance. In roles like Ali where he performed rather well, but the movie itself wasn’t well received it seemed to have scared him off. Like Bogle talked about him reverting back to “safe” roles like sequels of earlier successful moves he had. When he was able to actually try something new and take risks it leads to huge successes like I, Robot and I am Legend that led him to be more confident in acting and take on riskier roles. When Smith has that kind of confidence you can really see his talents as an actor take off. For example, when he took on the leading role for Pursuit of Happiness it truly showed just how amazing his acting capabilities actually are. His career seems to fluctuate between these amazing and emotional performances until a movie isn’t well received and he gets criticized he then reverts back to these safe roles, which help audiences get comfortable again with him before trying out the riskier roles. Like the case with the stretch of movies like Gemini Man which was poorly received he then went to the Geni in Aladdin, and Bad Boys for Life to King Richard which he received an Oscar for.