In theaters

TRAINING DAY, directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer, 122 minutes, rated R.

In Antoine Fuqua’s “Training Day,” Denzel Washington takes to the screen and bullies just about everyone – the characters, his co-stars, the audience – with a performance that’s at once compelling and repelling.

As Alonzo Harris, a dirty L.A.P.D. narcotics cop out to prove to the world that he’s one mean S.O.B. worth fearing, Washington becomes a larger-than-life caricature, railing at the screen with a scene-chewing showiness that feels as if his ego and libido are trying to blow holes through everything.

It’s easy to see why he took the role. After being locked down for years as cinema’s long-standing good guy, a taste of evil had to be seductive. But the change of pace is almost too liberating for the actor, who is so overpowering as Harris, none of the other actors stand a chance opposite him.

The film follows Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a naive, idealistic cop with a wife and child who has the misfortune of becoming Harris’ rookie partner. He pays the price for it. In the course of one extremely long day, Harris puts Hoyt through an unbelievable series of events, from urging him to smoke pot laced with PCP, which he does, to threatening him to take the blame for a murder he didn’t commit, which, incredibly, he also does.

During the film’s first half, there doesn’t seem to be a limit to what Hoyt will do to please his new boss, which not only suggests that audiences are dealing with an idiot who doesn’t know when to walk away from a bad situation, but which pushes the film’s naive rookie routine to an inevitable breaking point.

Like most American cop dramas, “Training Day” is at its best when it unleashes its maelstrom of bullets or when it sends its characters fleeing in one of the film’s several chase scenes; the violence gives the production a kick.

Fuqua, who directed music videos before scoring big in “The Replacement Killers,” also gets many of the small details right, such as the tense snapshots of inner-city life in the rougher sections of Los Angeles, or when Macy Gray and Snoop Dog appear in effective cameos as two crack-head hustlers struggling to keep it together.

But with Washington filling the screen from start to bloody finish with a performance that’s as grand as it is shameless, everything else withers in the shade of his smothering presence. There’s no question that the man is one of our best actors, but in “Training Day,” there’s also no question that it’s he who turns what could have been your ordinary drama about cops in the hood into one overblown melodrama.

Grade: C

JOY RIDE, directed by John Dahl, written by Clay Tarver and J.J. Abrams, 96 minutes, rated R.

Unlike last month’s mad-trucker-from-Hell movie, “Jeepers Creepers,” John Dahl’s taut, engrossing “Joy Ride” is a pulp thriller that works.

It takes place in the present, yet everything about it seems ripped from the 1970s – its sets, vintage cars, use of CB radios, sleazy bit players slumming along the fringes.

The film’s cheap, humid atmosphere is a character – a living, breathing presence – just as it was in Steven Spielberg’s 1971 television movie “Duel,” which featured a businessman on the run from a trucker he couldn’t see.

“Joy Ride” is about a group of twentysomethings on the run from a trucker they can’t see. It doesn’t have “Duel’s” intensity or its sheer build-up of horror and suspense, but it comes close in a handful of scenes executed with terrific precision, style and zest.

The film follows two brothers, the troublemaking Fuller (Steve Zahn) and the easygoing Lewis (Paul Walker), who find themselves cheating death while driving cross-country to pick up Lewis’ friend, Venna (Leelee Sobieski).

All of the problems that ensue stem from Fuller, who convinces Lewis to mimic a woman’s voice and seduce a trucker via their CB radio. The whisky-voiced trucker, fittingly named Rusty Nail, falls for the prank, drives to a nearby motel for what he hopes will be an amorous evening – and causes one ugly ruckus when he learns he’s been duped.

Now out for revenge, something Dahl (“Rounders,” “Unforgettable”) and his screenwriters take with a vicious seriousness, Rusty becomes the omnipresent trucker, terrorizing the boys – not to mention poor Venna – in a whole host of cruelly inventive ways.

From its lingering shots of rain-soaked motels that smack of Hitchcock’s “Psycho” to the chill of the American highway lifted straight from “The Hitcher” and “Convoy,” “Joy Ride” evokes a graveyard of images that ignite its noirish tone.

Sobieski, a poor man’s Helen Hunt, barely registers. But Lewis and Zahn are beautifully paired, carrying a film that strikes just the right balance been horror, humor, suspense and camp.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO/DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Bridget Jones’s Diary ? A-

One Night at McCool’s ? C-

Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs (DVD debut) ? A+

Heartbreakers ? B+

The Mummy Returns ? D

Along Came a Spider ? C-

Citizen Kane

(DVD debut) ? A+

A Knight’s Tale ? C

Amores Perros ? A

Crocodile Dundee

in Los Angeles ? C-

Driven ? D

The Luzhin Defense ? B+

Startup.com ? A-

The Widow of St. Pierre ? A-

Spy Kids ? A-

Blow ? D+

Someone Like You ? D

The Dish ? A-

Exit Wounds ? D

Memento ? A-

The Tailor of Panama ? A-

Joe Dirt ? D+

See Spot Run ? F

Willy Wonka and the

Chocolate Factory

(DVD debut) ? A-

Hannibal ? C+

Say it Isn’t So ? D

15 Minutes ? D+

Blow Dry ? C+

Enemy at the Gates ? C

An Everlasting Piece ? B+

Get Over It ? B-

Josie and the Pussycats ? F

Say It Isn’t So ? D+

Tomcats ? F

Chocolat ? A-

The Mexican ? C-

3000 Miles to Graceland ? D

The Brothers ? B

Head Over Heels ? D

The Trumpet

of the Swan ? C+

Pollock ? A-

Sweet November ? D-

Valentine ? F

The Gift ? B+

Family Man ? D-

Saving Silverman ? F

Down to Earth ? D

Monkeybone ? D

Thirteen Days ? A-

Unbreakable ? C+

The Wedding Planner ? D+

You Can Count on Me ? A

Proof of Life ? C-

Save the Last Dance ? C-

State and Main ? B