Training Day

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Training Day
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Antoine Fuqua
Produced by	Bruce Berman Davis Guggenheim
Written by	David Ayer
Starring	Denzel Washington Ethan Hawke Eva Mendes Snoop Dogg Scott Glenn
Music by	Mark Mancina
Cinematography	Mauro Fiore
Editing by	Conrad Buff
Studio	Village Roadshow Pictures Outlaw Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	October 5, 2001 (2001-10-05)
Running time	122 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$45 million[1]
Box office	$104,876,233[2]

Training Day is a 2001 crime drama film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer, starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The plot follows two LAPD narcotics detectives over a 24-hour period in the gang neighborhoods of South 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 an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 74th Academy Awards. His co-star Ethan Hawke was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a rookie cop. This film was also the debut of R&B singer Grammy-winner Macy Gray as an actress.

Plot

The film follows a single day in the life of an LAPD cop, Jake Hoyt (Hawke), who is scheduled to be evaluated by Detective Alonzo Harris (Washington), a highly decorated LAPD narcotics officer who could advance Jake's career. In Alonzo's car, the pair of officers observe teenage Mara Salvatrucha members dealing drugs in a park. Instead of arresting the buyers, Alonzo confiscates the drugs and 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, but shortly thereafter, Alonzo tells him the marijuana was laced with PCP. While driving, Jake notices a female high school student being sexually assaulted by two men in an alley. Jake jumps out to help her and subdues the attackers, but Alonzo refuses to report the incident. He tells the girl to leave, telling Jake that the girl's gang member (Sureño) cousin will seek the attackers 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 naïve.

Alonzo and Jake then go to the home of a drug dealer named the Sandman and serve a phony search warrant, which is actually a cover for Alonzo to steal drug money. Jake again objects to Alonzo's actions, especially since it could have gotten them killed. The duo then arrive at Baldwin Village to visit Alonzo's Salvadoran girlfriend Sara (Eva Mendes) and their young son. Afterward, Alonzo meets with a group of high-ranking police officials dubbed the "Three Wise Men" (Tom Berenger, Harris Yulin and Raymond J. Barry). They tell Alonzo that they know he owes money to the Russian Mafia and suggest that he leave town. But Alonzo insists he can control the situation and gets permission from the Wise Men to "cash in on an account" with the caveat that he avoid a scandal. Alonzo later tells Jake that he had to give Sandman's money to the Three Wise Men to obtain an arrest warrant.

Alonzo takes Jake and several other narcotic officers to the home of Roger (Scott Glenn), a drug dealer and former police officer the two visited earlier. Using the warrant, they seize several million dollars from underneath the floor of Roger's kitchen, but Jake refuses to take his share of the cash -- much to the suspicion of the other cops. Alonzo then shoots Roger and arranges the scene to appear like a justified shooting. Jake refuses to lie, and after being threatened seizes Alonzo's gun. A Mexican standoff ensues, with Jake threatening to shoot Alonzo while the other officers threaten to shoot Jake. Alonzo then reveals that the LAPD will run a blood test on Jake following the shooting, thus detecting 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 naïve view of police work.

Alonzo then drives Jake to the home of a Mexican gangster named "Smiley" (Cliff Curtis), allegedly to run an errand. Alonzo gives Smiley a package containing a large stack of money, which Smiley asks his sister to count while he plays poker with two other gang members. Jake is persuaded to join the game and engages in tense conversation with the three men. After Smiley's sister confirms to him that the count is correct, Smiley receives a message on his phone. Smiley then reveals to Jake that Alonzo has abandoned him, and explains 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. Alonzo has paid Smiley to kill Jake. Jake tries to escape but is overpowered and dragged into the bathroom to be executed. The men search his pockets, finding the wallet he had picked up earlier from the girl he rescued, who is Smiley's cousin. Smiley calls the girl, who confirms that Jake defended her against the attackers. In gratitude for protecting his cousin, Smiley lets Jake go, and asks for no hard feelings because the planned execution was "just business".

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 have grown tired of Alonzo's arrogance and allow Jake to walk away with the money.

In his escape to LAX, Alonzo is surrounded by Russian hitmen who 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 near LAX."

Alternate ending, and Early release

On the VHS and DVD versions of the film there is an alternate ending in which 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, all of it, and tells them to leave him alone. He then is seen walking into his house with a bag, presumably containing the money.

Due to the September 11, 2001 attacks, Training Day's release date was moved up to October 5th, 2001, to replace the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Collateral Damage, which had a theme of terrorist attacks in the U.S.. This early release date put it in line for the upcoming 74th Academy Awards nominations.

Cast

• Denzel Washington as Detective Alonzo Harris
• Ethan Hawke as Officer Jake Hoyt
• Scott Glenn as Roger
• Tom Berenger as Stan Gursky
• Harris Yulin as Detective Doug Rosselli
• Raymond J. Barry as Captain Lou Jacobs
• Cliff Curtis as Smiley
• Dr. Dre as Detective Paul
• Snoop Dogg as Blue
• Macy Gray as Sandman's wife
• Charlotte Ayanna as Lisa Hoyt
• Eva Mendes as Sara
• Nick Chinlund as Detective Tim
• Jaime P. Gomez as Detective Mark
• Raymond Cruz as Sniper
• Noel Gugliemi as Moreno
• Samantha Becker as Letty
• Kyjel N. Jolly as Alonzo's son
• Fran Kranz as College Driver
• Robert Leon as Veterano
• Seidy Lopez as Dreamer
• Sarah Danielle Madison as Female College Passenger
• Rudy Perez as PeeWee
• Cle "Shaheed" Sloan as Bone
• Brett Sorenson as Male College Passenger
• Abel Soto as Neto
• Denzel Whitaker as Dimitri
• Peter Greene as Jeff (Uncredited)
• Terry Crews as Gang Member (Uncredited)

Production

Fuqua wanted Washington's 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]

As detailed on the DVD's commentary, Fuqua also saw Hawke's character as generally honorable but so driven by ambition that he was willing to compromise his principles, particularly when following the charming and persuasive example of Washington's character. Also in the DVD commentary, Fuqua says that he fought with studio executives who wanted to cut the Three Wise Men scene, thinking it slowed the film. Fuqua insisted that the Wise Men scene was pivotal in establishing that at least some of Alozno's illegal actions were sanctioned by his superiors who regarded unethical behavior as a necessary evil.

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. He even obtained permission to shoot in the Imperial Courts housing project, the first time L.A. street gangs had allowed cameras to be brought into that neighborhood. The crew also filmed in Hoover Block and Baldwin Village.^[4] 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.^[4]

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 critics.

The review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 72% of critics gave positive reviews based on 152 reviews.^[5] Roger Ebert^[6] gave the movie three-out-of-four stars, praising both the lead and supporting actors and the movie's gritty, kinetic energy. However, Ebert was bothered by several plot holes and wrote that "[a] lot of people are going to be leaving the theater as I did, wondering about the logic and plausibility of the last 15 minutes."

Awards

Denzel Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001, notably beating out Russell Crowe's performance as John Nash for A Beautiful Mind, 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.

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains (2003):
  • Alonzo Harris – #50 Villain

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.^[2]

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

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Training Day

• Official website
• Training Day at the Internet Movie Database
• Training Day at AllRovi
• Training Day at Rotten Tomatoes
• Training Day at Metacritic
• Training Day at Box Office Mojo
• Denzel Washington Training Day Interview at the BNET