Training Day

Training Day

Theatrical poster for Training Day
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Produced by Bruce Berman
Davis Guggenheim
Written by David Ayer
Starring Denzel Washington
Ethan Hawke
Music by Mark Mancina
Cinematography Mauro Fiore
Editing by Conrad Buff
Distributed by Warner Bros. (USA)
Release date(s) October 5, 2001
Running time 122 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $45,000,000 (estimated[1])
Gross revenue $104,876,233

Training Day is a 2001 police drama film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer and starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The film follows two LAPD narcotics detectives over a 24-hour period in the gang neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and East Los Angeles.

The film was a box office success and earned mostly positive critical appraisals. Washington's performance, a departure from his usual roles, was particularly praised, and earned him a Best Actor Oscar at the Academy Awards.

Contents

Plot

The film follows a single day in the life of a young LAPD cop, Jake Hoyt (Hawke). A married man with a baby daughter, Jake is scheduled to be evaluated by Detective Alonzo Harris (Washington), a highly decorated LAPD narcotics officer who could advance Jake's career.

The two meet at a diner for breakfast where Alonzo asks Jake for a story. Jake tells about a potentially dangerous traffic stop he and a female training officer made. Alonzo is unimpressed because after a year with an attractive female officer Jake has no tales of sexual exploits.

In Alonzo's customized 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo lowrider, the pair of officers observe teenage Mara Salvatrucha members dealing drugs in a park and pursue the college student buyers. Instead of arresting the buyers, Alonzo confiscates the drugs. He tells Jake to take a hit from the marijuana. Jake initially refuses, but Alonzo puts a gun to his head and says Jake's failure to use drugs could get him killed by a street dealer. Jake relents and smokes the marijuana. Shortly thereafter, Alonzo tells him the marijuana was laced with PCP.

Alonzo then takes Jake to the home of a middle-aged man named Roger (Scott Glenn) for an apparent social call. Roger mentions he's close to his goal of retiring to the Philippines and asks about Alonzo's trouble with "the Russians"; Alonzo changes the subject.

After leaving Roger's, Jake notices a female high school student being sexually attacked by two men in an alley. Jake jumps out to help her. Alonzo observes as Jake beats the two men up and cuffs them. Alonzo refuses to report the incident. He tells the girl to leave and tortures one of the attackers, saying the girl's gang member cousins will seek them out for revenge. Jake discovers the girl's wallet on the ground and takes it. Jake objects to Alonzo's use of vigilante "street justice," but Alonzo characterizes Jake as naive.

Alonzo and Jake then harass disabled drug dealer Blue (Snoop Dogg), forcing him to tell them about his supplier "Sandman" or go to jail. They go to Sandman's home and serve a phony search warrant. Alonzo steals Sandman's stash of drug money. His wife (Macy Gray), after realizing the warrant was actually a restaurant menu and the money is gone, calls for help from Sandman's crew. A shootout ensues, but Jake and Alonzo escape unharmed.

The duo arrive at a rough neighborhood called "The Jungles." Alonzo visits his girlfriend Sara (Eva Mendes) and their young son.

Afterwords, Alonzo meets with the "Three Wise Men": Stan Gursky of the District Attorney's office who investigates all police shootings (Tom Berenger); Detective Doug Rosselli of the Theft/White Collar Crimes Unit (Harris Yulin); and Captain Lou Jacobs (Raymond J. Barry). They tell Alonzo that they know he owes money to Russian mobsters. Alonzo gets permission from the Wise Men to "cash in on an account" with the caveat to avoid a scandal. Alonzo then puts the $40,000 he took from Sandman's house into the trunk of a Mercedes-Benz. Alonzo later tells Jake that he had to give the money to the Three Wise Men to obtain an arrest warrant.

Alonzo returns to Roger's home with Jake and some fellow "narcs" (narcotics officers): Jeff (Peter Greene), Paul (Dr. Dre), Tim (Nick Chinlund), and Mark (Jaime Gomez). They seize several million dollars from underneath the floor of Roger's kitchen. When the officers begin distributing part of the cash among themselves, Jake refuses a share, which the other officers view with suspicion. Alonzo orders Jake to shoot Roger but Jake refuses and Alonzo does it. Alonzo and his crew arrange the scene to make it appear that Roger fired on Jeff when the police entered the house, and that Jake killed Roger in defense of his fellow officers. Jake refuses to lie about the events. Alonzo again threatens to kill Jake and make it appear that he was killed in the line of duty by Roger. Jake seizes Alonzo's gun and a Mexican standoff ensues, with Jake threatening to shoot Alonzo while the other narcs threaten to shoot Jake. Alonzo reveals his wild card: the LAPD will run a blood test on Jake following the shooting that will detect the PCP he had smoked earlier. Alonzo offers to have the test results falsified in exchange for Jake's cooperation. Jake reluctantly agrees, and Alonzo again urges Jake to drop his naive view of police work.

Jake and Alonzo later arrive at the home of a Latino gangster named "Smiley" (Cliff Curtis), who is playing poker with two other gang members, Moreno (Noel Gugliemi) and Sniper (Raymond Cruz). Claiming he needs to use the toilet, Alonzo leaves the house. After playing a hand, Jake realizes that Alonzo has abandoned him. Smiley informs Jake of Alonzo's situation: by midnight, Alonzo must pay $1 million to the Russian mob for killing one of their couriers in Las Vegas or be killed himself. Jake tries to escape but is overpowered and dragged into the bathroom to be shot. The men ignore his pleas for mercy and search his pockets, finding the wallet he had picked up earlier, which, coincidentally, belongs to Smiley's young cousin. Smiley calls the girl who confirms that Jake defended her against the attackers. In gratitude for protecting his young cousin, Smiley lets Jake go.

Jake returns to Sara's apartment looking for Alonzo. He attempts to arrest Alonzo, but Alonzo resists and they fight. Jake eventually subdues him, after which the local gang members and residents begin congregating to watch. Alonzo tries to get the crowd on his side by offering a reward to whoever kills Jake, but they allow Jake to walk away with the money. Alonzo hurls insults at the gang members and neighbors, but they simply walk away.

In his escape to LAX, Alonzo is surrounded by Russian hitmen who spray his car with assault rifle fire and ultimately kill him. The final scene has Jake pulling into his driveway and going home to his wife, Lisa (Charlotte Ayanna), and daughter, while a radio broadcast describes Alonzo's death as occurring honorably while "serving a high-risk warrant at LAX."

Alternate ending

On the VHS and DVD versions of the film there is an alternate ending, wherein Jake comes home but, instead of simply walking into his house, he is confronted by the Three Wise Men, who ask what he did with the money. He says he checked it into evidence. Gursky asks "All of it?" Jake says yes and tells them to leave him alone.

Cast

Production

Antoine Fuqua wanted Training Day to look as authentic as possible, and he shot on location in some of the most infamous neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California. He even obtained permission to shoot in the Imperial Courts housing project. It was the first time L.A. street gangs allowed cameras to be brought into the Imperial Courts neighborhood. The crew also filmed in Hoover Block and The Jungles.[2] Parts of the film were shot on a dead end street called Palmwood Drive where the Black P. Stones Blood gang members were seen on the rooftops. Cle Shaheed Sloan, the gang technical advisor of Training Day, managed to get on screen real-life gang members from Rollin' 60 Crips, PJ Watts Crips and B. P. Stones (a Bloods set).

According to Fuqua's commentary on the DVD release of the film, the actors and crew ended up receiving a warm welcome from local residents. When Fuqua was unable to shoot a scene directly on location, he recreated the locations on sets.

There were also two police officers on hand as technical advisors, Michael Patterson and Paul Lozada (Lozada being from the San Francisco Police Department). Washington, Hawke and other cast members also met with undercover police officers, local drug dealers and gang members to help them understand their roles better.[2]

The coffee shop in the beginning of the film, called Quality Cafe, appears in many films, including Old School, Se7en, Ghost World, Sex and Death 101, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Catch Me If You Can.

Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews upon release, and Denzel Washington's portrayal of Alonzo Harris gathered glowing praise from the critics. Fuqua wanted his character to be seductive and part of a machine, and not just a random rogue cop. In Washington's own words:

I think in some ways he’s done his job too well. He’s learned how to manipulate, how to push the line further and further, and, in the process, he’s become more hard-core than some of the guys he’s chasing.[3]

The review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 72% of critics gave positive reviews based on 152 reviews.[4]

Awards

Denzel Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 and the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain in 2002 for his performance in Training Day, and Ethan Hawke was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2001 for the film.

Box office

The film was released in theaters on October 5, 2001, and was a box office hit, landing at #1. At its second week of release, the film's gross revenue was $13,386,457, landing again in the #1 position. The film stayed in the top-ten box office until the seventh week of release, landing at #12. With an estimated budget of $45 million, Training Day ultimately grossed $76,631,907 domestically and $104,876,233 worldwide.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack containing hip hop music was released on September 11, 2001 by Priority Records. It peaked at 35 on the Billboard 200 and 19 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and spawned two hit singles, Nelly's "#1" and Dr. Dre and DJ Quik's "Put It on Me".

References

  1. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139654/business
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Training Day Production Notes". Warner Brothers. http://www.kingroom.com/movies/2001/training_day/notes.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11. 
  3. ↑ "Man on a mission". October 2006.
  4. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes - Training Day". http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/training_day/. Retrieved 2008-12-15. 

External links

David Ayer
Director
Harsh Times (2006) · Street Kings (2008) · Commando (2011)
Producer
Training Day (2001) · Harsh Times (2006)
Writer
U-571 (2000) · The Fast and the Furious (2001) · Training Day (2001) · Dark Blue (2002) · S.W.A.T. (2003) · Harsh Times (2006) · Commando (2011)
Films directed by Antoine Fuqua
1990s
The Replacement Killers (1998)
2000s
Bait (2000) · Training Day (2001) · Tears of the Sun (2003) · King Arthur (2004) · Shooter (2007)
2010s
Brooklyn's Finest (2010)