Training Day

When we first meet Detective Alonzo, he is reading the paper at a greasy diner in inner-city Los Angeles. His all-black attire, gold jewelry, and Zen-like focus are offset by a pair of eyeglasses, giving the first impression of a man who is unwaveringly confident yet aware of his limitations. Throughout the course of Training Day, the former assumption is confirmed unequivocally while the latter is blown to shreds.

Officer Hoyt is on his first day in the Narcotics division. He wakes up to find his wife feeding their newborn baby girl, and it doesn't take long to decipher that Hoyt is a good man. He's also nervous as hell, seeing his promotion as an opportunity to move his family to a safe neighborhood. Throughout the course of Training Day, his career ambitions devolve into a fight for survival during his ride along with Alonzo.

Alonzo dispenses his form of street justice.

Training Day paints a nightmare vision of Los Angeles and its police department that, based on recent history, is sadly believable. And at the center of the nightmare is Alonzo, the boogeyman with a badge and a gun. Denzel plays Alonzo as man who combats the danger and bureaucratic red tape of his job with sheer bravado and braggadocio. When he and Hoyt come across criminals that Alonzo doesn't deem worthy of the time needed to arrest and process them, he delivers punishment through shocking acts of violence and threats that best be heeded.

Hoyt is horrified by the actions of his partner, but Alonzo manages to provide semi-sound reasoning for his decisions. As narcotics officers, he explains to Hoyt, their job is to go after the high rollers. Let the patrolmen worry about the riffraff. Hoyt's intelligence affords him the ability to see the logic in Alonzo's approach. But one forced drug consumption and orchestrated murder-robbery later, and his sensibilities are betrayed.

Hoyt's day goes from bad to worse.

Director Antoine Fuqua shot much of Training Day in some of LA's most violent, gang-infested neighborhoods, and every scene feels drenched with menace (the scene in the Mexicans' house is on par with the basement scene from Zodiac in how it builds a sense of dread). The character of Alonzo may border on caricature, but the possibility of his existence is not far-fetched. I see him starting out on the force with a cocky attitude and a violent streak that he employs to mask his fear and self-loathing, and as he moved his way up the ladder of the LAPD and was given a longer leash by his superiors -- we meet a few of them in a frightening scene in a dimly lit steakhouse -- his morality and restraint succumbed to his survival instincts. And what better way to survive the streets than by turning yourself into their most terrifying monster?

Alonzo's famous "King Kong ain't got shit on me!" monologue at the end of the film is fascinating not just because of Denzel's blistering delivery, but because we are witnessing a larger-than-life character's facade come crashing down. It's here we realize that Alonzo's flashy clothes, souped-up car, and acts of violence belie a childlike fear of dismissal and loss of power. Alonzo is a bully and a dictator, and when he finds the tables have been turned on him, he erupts. It's a powerful scene that all but guaranteed Denzel's eventual Oscar win.

I mentioned earlier that the character of Alonzo is not implausible. Indeed, Denzel modeled his appearance and behavior on Rafael Perez, a former officer who was at the center of the LAPD Rampart scandal in the 90s. Perez was a member of the LAPD's now defunct anti-gang task force known as CRASH, and during his tenure, he was involved in crimes ranging from felony drug theft to shooting and framing a teenage gang member who was left paralyzed from the waist down. Monsters do exist, and it's terrifying to know that some are tasked with protecting us.