Movie 'Training Day' gives the wrong message to the naive and young

Cafe Society
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Training Day with Denzel Washington is one of my most favorite movies of all time. Denzel’s acting is excellent. The movie is scary for it’s realism.

When the movie starts, I’m on Denzel Washington’s (Alonzo’s) side. As the movie continues, slowly I find myself switching sides and supporting the rookie cop. But I realize that in real life, I would probably be more in favor of Denzel Washington’s role than the white rookie cop.

Though well intentioned, I wonder if the movie gives the wrong message to the naive, young and innocent.

This rookie cop thinks that the force of the law–the force of justice is behind him. He feels justified in being righteous. And that is where he is a fool. He is a modern day Don Quixote. He believes in being a chivalrous knight of shining armor in a world that is tarnished.

Whose fault is it that no one told this rookie cop about the way that life really is? Whose responsibility was it to tell him? If this rookie cop went on a chest thumping mission of cleaning up the world, sooner or later he would die. He would rub some politician or someone higher up the wrong way. They wouldn’t care for his arrogance and his straight shooting ideas of right and wrong in a world where people are supposed to bend to the different subtle flavors of power. And that which does not bend when it is supposed to, when a greater force asks you to bend, gets crushed.
It’s not personal…it’s just the law of nature.

Here is this cop. Just graduated from police academy. Feels all high and righteous to save the world. Thinks that the world operates with these clean ideas of morality, when it doesn’t. He thinks that he is backed up by the force of righteousness. It’s not.

The rookie cop wants to turn the world into something from his ideals…without taking the time to understand where the world is really at. Is there more grease in the world than he has the soap to clean? He doesn’t have to consider all that. He’s righteous, and somehow, magically, his chivalry is going to make up for all the shit in the world. Puh-lease.

He totally doesn’t understand the power dynamics of the world that he lives in, including his individual power in the larger dynamic playing out. He totally doesn’t understand the degree to which the forces of justice will protect him when he goes head first to bend these other forces of power. This is a recipe for him to get crushed. And he almost does, under that Mexican gang’s gun in the bathtub. It was sheer luck, and the good will (and somewhat, stupidity) of the Mexican gang that they let him go. If they were smart, they wouldn’t have relied on the rookie cop’s good will to not come back with a vendetta.

He is a fool for trying to do his job in a vacuum without taking the time to understand the power dynamics in the world around him and how his own personal power fits into that equation. By doing so, he has made himself into a law of nature, while ignoring the laws of nature that operate. Arrogance.

And what? He is going to personally redefine the world with his ideas of righteousness that he learned in school? He thinks that the way the world is, is not going to push back, when he goes plunging into the darkness, mistaking it for the light?

Why didn’t police academy train this cop for the real world? Why did they feed him liberal bullshit that doesn’t apply to the way the streets function? Why didn’t the system protect this rookie cop from destroying himself? Why didn’t it vaccinate him with all the disease that he would face out so that he knew his realistic role? Why did the system over-play the good that he would achieve and set unreasonable expectations for him? Don’t you think that his liberal bullshit education turned him into a pessimist?

Why didn’t it teach him about who he could fight and how…and not to go after seeking justice blindly? Why didn’t it teach him about his own limitations?

In the steets, if you want to survive, you learn to study your environment and be flexible. You learn to study yourself in relation to the power dynamics playing out. Yes, it asks you to be adaptable. And yes,sooner or later in the process you find yourself twisted out of everything you knew to be good. But that is why it’s called the streets, its where the rubber hits the road. And sometimes the friction erases a part of you.

When this rookie cop gets twisted out of shape in the context of trying to adapt to the real world, whose responsibility is it to put him back into shape? Where is that mold that he would use to put himself back into shape? Why would he be motivated to regain this shape? Why is it better to play it straight than to be twisted…if being twisted allows you to survive the streets a lot better than if you play it straight?

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But that’s what the movie was about - how the rookie cop learned how the world works. It’s called “training day”, after all, because that’s what it was. He’ll be a *lot *less naive in the future.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Denzel character was a criminal, and got what he deserved.

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What is the “wrong message” you think the film is sending?

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But the rookie cop wins the and the streetwise “morally flexible” cop gets a righteous comeuppance.

And the rookie cop wins precisely because of his morality.

It’s Ethan Hawke who makes Denzel pull over so he can fight off the two muggers/rapists and save the young Hispanic girl. Denzel, had he seen it, would probably have driven on by. And it’s saving that girl that - by a bizarre coincidence - saves Ethan Hawke - she’s the niece of the gang leader that Denzel pays to kill his aggravatingly moral trainee. That good act saves him from the assassination, and allows him to confront Denzel in the rooftop battle finale. Moreover, for all Denzel’s posturing about how all the gangbangers in the housing estate do his bidding, when the chips are down they turn on him and given Ethan the gun. Because Denzel’s manipulation and power-plays have worked, but at the cost of creating a lot of resentment.

In the end, the rookie has learned some useful things about the differences between the theory and practice of policework and some much more useful things about how widespread corruption is in the LAPD . But he hasn’t sacrificed his ideals - his commitment to those is what got him through the day. Ultimately, he’s not twisted out of shape at all. Ultimately, the person who didn’t understand the forces at work was Denzel.

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Welcome to the SDMB, shakabroh. We have a dedicated forum for discussions of movies (TV, books, music, etc.), Cafe Society. I’ll move this thither for you.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

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I completely disagree with the OP. Quite apart from Stanislaus’s point that Alonzo’s “street smart” approach turned out to be street stupid, a police officer’s purpose is more than to just survive. A police department filled with people like Alonzo is just another gang.

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In that movie though everyone is corrupt. Remember? Just how did Alonzo get the warrant to raid that drug dealer’s house? He bribed a Judge with money he stole from another drug dealer. He then kills a richer drug dealer and uses the drug money to try and bribe some unrelated Russians not to kill him.

The SWAT team Alonzo works with, the politicians/Judges he eats with, everyone is a crook. Alonzo justifys his actions with comforting thoughts like “they build prisons because of me!”

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I wasn’t as fond of the film as the OP was; it started strong but the bad guys turned into caricatures and by the end the good guy was leaping off buildings in the name of justice.

In this life moderation is often the key. You have to compromise to get along. Still we need the idealists more than the amoral pragmatists. Politics and law enforcement won’t stay clean without a regular influx of people with a nearly spiritual belief in honesty and fairness.

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Yeah, Ethan Hawke having to smoke drugs ten minutes into his job was great, but you’re right, it’s like the makers of the movie kind of lost their balls halfway into the movie, and what could have been a great story about corruption turned into another standard action movie.

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Agreed. I was a little surprised at the time to see how much praise Denzel Washington got for this movie. His performance was fine, but by the end his character turns into a mustache-twirling villain and he’s just chewing the scenery. It was bad writing.

It’s all well and good to teach somebody how the world really works. Alonzo doesn’t just get his hands a little dirty. He’s a murderer, he’s involved with the mob, and he steals millions of dollars from evidence. He’s not teaching Jake how the world works so much as he’s justifying his own behavior and trying to win over another stooge. I think you saw a more nuanced movie than I did. :wink:

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The movie Training Day was not very realistic at all. It was a very over the top film. I didn’t think Denzel’s plan in the movie was very smart, but in the movie’s defense, his plan doesn’t work and it gets him killed.

The OP seems to greatly overestimate how likely it is for a police officer to be murdered in the United States. Statistically, they’re more likely to be killed in car accidents while on duty than to be murdered in the line of duty.

I’m not sure I get your point. Surely you don’t think that police officers should act like Denzel’s character, do you? All things considered, he wasn’t a very effective cop.

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The OP complains about the police academy teaching its students “liberal bullshit” but what does he want them to teach instead? Should there be courses on how to take bribes and beat up suspects? The academy teaches recruits how to uphold the law - it’s not the academy’s fault that other people choose to break laws.

Instead of complaining about how the police academy is full of liberal bullshit like truth and justice and integrity, maybe you should be trying to fill the rest of the world with the same liberal bullshit.

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It should teach them how not to be framed and murdered by their new partner!

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And how not to get killed when they only have one day left 'til retirement.

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That was the same problem I had with the movie. Alonzo HAD to be all-bad with no good traits whatsoever. Everything was black or white with no shades of gray or room for ambiguity. Training Day reminded me of another movie about a crooked cop: Touch of Evil. However, at least Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles’ character) in the latter film, as bad as he was, still retained his detective instincts. Alonzo was completely worthless. I would’ve liked Training Day much more if they would’ve had Alonzo to be right about some things. Or, in other words, have Alonzo be a “good detective” but a “lousy cop.”

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Furthermore, aren’t conservatives as least as much in favor of truth, justice and integrity as liberals are? The left does not have a monopoly on starry-eyed idealism (and that’s a good thing).

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My critique of this movie was not just based on the United States police or American education system. I don’t think that ‘the Straight dope’ is American centric…or is it? Am I mistaken?

But you’re right, the movie is based in the United States. I’m just trying to analyze it from a slightly broader perspective.

Look, I’m not saying Liberal bullshit education as a way to hate on liberalism or the education system. My anger more comes from this cops lack of preparation. I feel for him. I am looking out for the cop and his survivability. I just don’t want to see this cop hurt himself because he set his ideals too high. I just don’t want him to be disappointed in his zeal to change the world. I want him to set realistic expectations so that he can actually be effective. Is there a question of effectiveness before survival?

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily agree with Alonzo (Denzel’s character) either. Alonzo is a “three wise men” (remember them?) wanna be. He’s way too much of a hot head strutting his stuff for me to consider him slick for the streets. Alonzo’s character (trying to emulate "the three wise men) thinks he is a lot smarter than he is. That’s why at a certain point he loses his grip, and the streets turn on him.

But the main point is that Alonzo chose who he wanted to become. In the case of the white rookie cop, this guy is an emblem of the education system. All I’m saying is that I feel that it leaves a lot to be desired for this cop to survive his environment.

I felt the movie finished with an unspoken message that the rookie cop was someone to be admired and emulated. And I feel that was the wrong message. I thought it was too simplistic. Have you heard that saying, “the path to hell is filled with good intentions?”

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Much more nuanced portrayal of a crooked cop/good cop dynamic: DCI Hunt/ DC Tyler in* Life on Mars* - Hunt is a brutal thug, a torturer, on the take (at least initially) and has no problem with shopping someone if *he *thinks they’re guilty. But for all that, he still is a copper, with a copper’s instincts and his justification (that it’s the only way to get the job done) actually seems to be sincere belief. Definitely *not *a moustache-twirler.

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The Shield is the ultimate corrupt-cop show. Incredibly well-written show…no end is left untied. And all the characters are very believable.

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And how to say, “I’m too old for this shit!”