Antoine Fuqua, 2001
Interpretación: Denzel Washington (Alonzo Harris), Ethan Hawke (Jake Hoyt), Scott Glenn (Roger), Tom Berenger (Stan), Cliff Curtis (Smiley), Snoop Dogg (Sammy), Charlotte Ayanna (Lisa Hoyt), Harris Yulin (Doug Rosselli), Raymond J. Barry (Lou Jacobs).
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En el comienzo de esta película, el protagonista, el público, conoce a un hombre que trabaja fuera de la moral. Denzel Washington interpreta a un policía que ha llegado a meterse hasta tal punto en el mundo de los camellos que se comporta como uno de ellos, habla como uno de ellos y da miedo, como uno de ellos. Hasta aquí la película es interesante. Después la narración se vuelve un cuento moral de lo que no se puede y lo que sí se puede hacer. En otras palabras, después de este brillante comienzo la película flojea en la más previsible morality play, con buenos y malos, todos reconocibles y con claves sencillitas para que nadie se olvide de lo que no debe hacer en esta vida.
La historia de Training Day ocurre en un solo día. El primer día de trabajo en la brigada antidroga, Jay Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) tiene las preocupaciones de cualquier principiante con ganas de hacer las cosas bien, pero Alonzo (Denzel Washington) su compañero es un hombre curtido que se comporta como los propios delincuentes. Los amenaza, les roba la droga, el dinero, obliga a Jay a tomar droga. Su filosofía de vida es que hay que aceptar los pecados pequeños para conseguir llegar a los grandes, a los grandes distribuidores. Alonzo tiene una novia en un barrio de Los Ángeles prohibido para los policías y los ciudadanos. Conoce su ley y es respetado. Alonzo es un hombre interesante, pero también descubriremos que guarda un secreto.
Training day pone en escena las peores pesadillas de un principiante. Si alguien ha pensado alguna vez que le podría ocurrir algo terrible en su primer día de trabajo anda muy corto al lado de lo que sufre el joven Jay Hoyt. Yo sencillamente no me lo creo, como tampoco me creo los sueños edulcorados de la factoría Disney. Lo que me pregunto es porque cuando se distorsiona la realidad hasta crear malos peores que el demonio todo el mundo se los cree y por qué cuando se crea a seres infinitamente buenos todo el mundo se rebela. Yo acepto de buena gana el realismo y del mismo modo las exageraciones de la fantasía, pero puestos a elegir fantasías prefiero las almibaradas. Y me quejo del éxito incondicional que tiene este tipo de fantasías perversas.
Mr. Cranky When I close my eyes and hear street talk, I usually mistake the person for Ethan Hawke.
I think most rational people understood that there were serious problems within the LAPD when Rodney King got the crap beat out of him and Mark Fuhrman took the stand in the O.J. case. Today, telling a story about corruption in the LAPD is like kicking a dead horse or exposing racial tensions in Cincinnati. Tell me something I don't already know.
Robert W. Butler "You gotta be a wolf to catch a wolf," Alonzo reasons.
Is Alonzo really a super cop, an essentially admirable man devoted to achieving "justice" at all costs?
Roger Ebert (3/4) [CHICAGO SUNTIMES] He plays Alonzo as the meanest, baddest narcotics cop in the city--a dude who cruises the mean streets in his confiscated customized Caddy, extracting tribute and accumulating graft like a medieval warlord shaking down his serfs. His pose is that the job must be done this way: If you don't intimidate the street, it will kill you. This is the lesson he's teaching Jake Hoyt
Dispensing street justice is what it's all about, Alonzo believes; the enemy lives outside the law, and you have to pursue him there.
Antoine in the earlier scenes seems extreme but perhaps believable; by the end, he's like a monster from a horror film, unkillable and implacable.
Of course you can't watch the movie without thinking of the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson sagas, two sides of the same coin, both suggesting the Los Angeles police are not perfect.
Footnote: Will audiences accept this movie in the current climate, when cops and firemen are hailed as heroes?
I think most rational people understood that there were serious problems within the LAPD when Rodney King got the crap beat out of him and Mark Fuhrman took the stand in the O.J. case. Today, telling a story about corruption in the LAPD is like kicking a dead horse or exposing racial tensions in Cincinnati. Tell me something I don't already know.
Robert W. Butler "You gotta be a wolf to catch a wolf," Alonzo reasons.
Is Alonzo really a super cop, an essentially admirable man devoted to achieving "justice" at all costs?
Roger Ebert (3/4) [CHICAGO SUNTIMES] He plays Alonzo as the meanest, baddest narcotics cop in the city--a dude who cruises the mean streets in his confiscated customized Caddy, extracting tribute and accumulating graft like a medieval warlord shaking down his serfs. His pose is that the job must be done this way: If you don't intimidate the street, it will kill you. This is the lesson he's teaching Jake Hoyt
Dispensing street justice is what it's all about, Alonzo believes; the enemy lives outside the law, and you have to pursue him there.
Antoine in the earlier scenes seems extreme but perhaps believable; by the end, he's like a monster from a horror film, unkillable and implacable.
Of course you can't watch the movie without thinking of the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson sagas, two sides of the same coin, both suggesting the Los Angeles police are not perfect.
Footnote: Will audiences accept this movie in the current climate, when cops and firemen are hailed as heroes?