Training Day is one of my favorite movies, but there’s always been a scene that I was unsure about: After the ‘justifiable homicide in the line of duty’ that takes place at Roger’s house, Alonzo and Jake go to the home of Smiley, a Latino gangster. Alonzo leaves Jake there to go pay off the blood money that he owes. Jake, during the poker game with the gangsters, realizes that he’s been abandoned and attempts to escape but is dragged into the bathroom where Smiley & CO prepare to kill him. Of course, Jake winds up being released when Smiley learns that Jake had rescued his cousin.
But here’s my question:
Why were Smiley and his friends going to kill Jake? Did they want to kill him because he was a cop? Were they going to kill him on Alonzo’s orders (presumably because Alonzo feared that Jake couldn’t be corrupted)?
Edit: Just watched the scene again and just before the gangsters jump Jake Smiley gets a text message. I’m assuming that the text is an order to kill Jake from Alonzo. I guess I answered my own question but there’s no harm in having this confirmed. :3
I’ve always thought the text message was to tell Smilie that Alonzo was clear of the house. When Smilie looks out the window, the car is gone, so it looks like just a signal to me.
I think you are right about why they were going to kill him. Alonzo wanted him dead because he couldn’t be corrupted. It was just part of doing business, as Smilie told Jake when he let him go.
Havent seen the movie in a few years, but wasnt there a large pile of cash involved? I am sure somebody was counting some money before the signal was given.
I am confident that Alonzo was paying Smiley to take care of his “problem”.
ETA: Didnt some girl come into the kitchen and say “Its all there”. And the Smiley leaned back with a sorta sigh and said “alright”.
I mean there are 10 million people living in Los Angeles, and the one rape victim Hoyt saves earlier in the day happens to be the cousin of the guy who is going to kill him. It stretches credulity to the breaking point for me --I still think it’s a great film though.
In the past, on this board no less, I’ve cited this as an example of deus ex machina only to be shouted down by the fuss budgets who claim, No, this isn’t a DEM since it still stays true to the movie’s internal logic and blah x 3
The Roger-getting-killed scene is probably my favorite in a film with a bunch of them. As Alonzo is divvying up the cash and then Hoyt, unsure but refusing, the other cops give a perfect nervous smile with that “Where are we going here?” look.
I don’t think it was a coincidence at all. Remember that Alonzo already knew that the victim was related to Hillside Trece, because she screamed it at the would-be rapists. He even asked her again who her cousins were. I always thought that it was Alonzo’s idea of a sick joke to have the same mobsters whack the guy who happened to save their kin. I mean, Alonzo more than likely had several shooters he could have contacted to solve his little problem.
One of the things that makes me truly love this movie is how Denzel Washington took a character that was batshit-bloodlusting-insane and turned him into a charismatic supercop that Ethan Hawke’s character couldn’t help looking up to until the very end. Many viewers don’t really catch the fact that Alonzo is out of his fucking mind, and that’s the masterstroke of this movie, as far as I’m concerned.
They knew that Alonzo was already dead. Why take the heat for a cop’s murder when they could let the Russians take care of their dirty work . . . more brutally and with more firepower than they probably had on hand at the moment?