Even leaving Bourne Identity out of the picture, this movie sucked. I dont quite understand why we used this movie in the first place, they weren't cops, she was an assaissan, he a washed up private eye who hustled johns. I also don' t buy Gena Davis as an action hero, Gina Gershon sure, but davis as a femal john mccleane? Hell no. This movie just had so many bad elements, cheesy villians wave upon wave of redshirt agents who cant kill anything and always explode. And speaking of death...how many times can these people escape death, half the time its not even explained how, they just appear and start shooting, only Michael Myers has more lives. Another part of this is how many times this thing ended, more than Return of the King; and how many times can the filmmaker come up with some way to try and scrape some suspense out of the audience? The girl escapes! oh noes now she's in the bomb-truck! Oh wait, her mom saves her! Run! No, dont go back its gonna blow dammit! Oh wait, no its gonna kindly wait for the villian to come back and then explode. Its also nice that grenades wait to detonate after the black sidekick gets off a clumsy quip, isnt that nice?

Ok, thats all. Back to the class material; Sam Jackson is the comic relief sidekick who gets emasculated by the supercop Davis time and again. Gurerro would just rip this apart, the black cop who stole out of spite, and gets by stealing gifts for his kid and setting up fake stings when he isnt milking clients for all their worth. He also isnt any good in a fight, and any instincts he has are all wrong. Way to go for a finale.

What did you expect?

I liked the movie. While I agree that the characters weren't the most believable, I think it was nice to see some action and bloodshed after starting with "In the Heat of the Night." I think the first and last movies we watched provide nice bookends for the other cop action/dramas/comedies we watched.

Although Charlie's/Sam's sudden medical miracle is quite unbelievable, did you ever really think they'd make her character anything but a born-again assassin? Truly, Gena Davis deserves some credit; I think she is a great actress, and although this scene may not have shown the true extent of her abilities, I think it was pretty damn good for an action cop movie. I never went into it expecting to see a true "film," though so maybe I underestimate the "cop" genre all together.

Regarding the material we've discussed so far, I don't even think King and Guerrero are worth using when analyzing "The Long Kiss Goodnight" because while the story is far-fetched and the characters' lack development and believability, we had good guys, bad guys, lots of guns, and assassins...really, if you liked "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and not this movie, I'd like to know how you can justify two married people who are so totally clueless about each other’s respective occupations, but an assassin-turned-schoolteacher-turned assassin again doesn't sit well with you. Is Charlie "by the book?"...Ummm maybe for her occupation because she isn't a typical cop anyway. Is she a hero? Well, she killed the bad guys to protect the good ones, so that about sums it up. She's a family woman, although she wasn't so sure until push came to shove, and she's clearly rogue, but aren't all assassins by nature? In short, I think trying to create a believable story line with likeable characters and lots of action is a tall order, and although "The Long Kiss Goodnight" falls short, it is hardly the worst film in its category.

the long kiss goodnight because nobody ever stays dead

What a movie to end on. I now remember seeing clips of this movie while flipping through the TV, and quickly changing the channel. We all know that Gurrero would have a hayday with this film, but if the roles were reversed there would be screaming feminists as well. Who knows which is worse. The fact that Mitch is played by such a strong black man is soooooo contradictory to the character. When I think of Samuel L Jackson, I don't picture him asking a woman to come save him. That is why I have such a hard time watching this film and actually believing what their characters are saying and presenting. I think that these cop action films are always at Christmas time because that makes the family ties so much stronger. Even the corrupt government guy who wants to kill 4,000 people for budget cuts isn't a monster because he gives the little girl a doll for christmas. Somehow that act erases everything else. One thing that I found interesting was the name usage of the characters. I thought that was a great tactic of the producers, because both of her names can be masculine and feminine. Samantha was used when she was in her PTA/mommy role, and Sam when she was became crazy killer. This is the same for the Charlie/Charlene name, which shows that she is acting like the typical crazy, bloodthirsty cop (or CIA agent). In comparison to Silence of the Lambs and Agent Starling is that she has that femine name all the time and acts rationally, and solves the crime killing only one person. Our man/female Charlie walks into traps and kills a lot of people. Unlike the other cop action films that we've seen, in the end our hardworking killer chooses family and quits the job. We have yet to see any male cop do that yet (but i havent seen all 193 cop action movies like King).

Not As Good As Bourne Identity

Well, as my title said, for movies dealing with assassins and amnesia, this movie just..well...sucks next to Bourne Identity. Granted, The Long Kiss Goodnight is a bit older but it just seemed lacking. I feel that the lead actress, Geena Davis, was portrayed as not being as strong physically or mentally as a male actor would have been and relied a lot more heavily on her sidekick Mitch (Samuel L. Jackson) than other heroes might have. I feel that women can be just as effective in action films as men can be and this film, like so many others, did not take the action as far as it could have.

As far as Racism goes, I don't recall seeing a lot of it in this film with the exception of one scene. Geena Davis comes on to Samuel L Jackson and he pushes her away and asks why a beautiful white lady would be attracted to a poor black guy. However, I think the film put just as much emphasis on Samuel L Jacksons economic status as it does with his being black.

I think that there were definately a lot of homosexual references in this film. There were multiple instances of the phrases "ass-fucking" and "grabbing your ankles". I don't really know why these were used, but a lot of it was done while Samuel L Jackson was pretending to be a cop. No clue why cops and homosexuality are linked, but it appears that this movie complies with the matching theory found in "Heroes in Hard Times". So while the book sucked, some of the theories and observations it puts forth were found in this movie.

I think that in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Geena Davis definately portrays the hero. Not only is she a successful mother in the beginning of the film, but later on when she realizes her previous identity, goes on to save not only her child, but a small town's entire population. Meanwhile Mitch is definately the sidekick. He gets abandoned when she thinks he isn't needed and then picked back up again when she thinks she can use him again. He tries to be the hero and just ends up getting shot and captured.

Oh, and why is it that almost every action movie with a sniper rifle has the same problem. Whoever uses the sniper rifle never sights it in. Realistically, without sighting in the rifle, its not going to shoot anywhere near where its aimed at. But maybe I'm just looking for a little more realism than Hollywood wants to offer.

-Gordon

The Long Kiss Goodnight

This movie definitely was not like any of the other films we have watched so far. Overall, I found it to have a bit of a confusing plot, and it was very unrealistic at times. The action scenes seemed very far-fetched and unbelievable. Having a lead female role put a different perspective on the film in comparison to all the other films we have seen with two male cops. The lead role is Charly, a woman who is searching to re-discover her past life after struggling with amnesia. Charly starts off as a married woman, a teacher, and she has an eight-year-old daughter. She discovers that in her past life she had a completely different identity, she was a secret-agent. Charly makes the drastic change and goes back to her former identity. During this, Charly has to learn to balance her past life and her life as an agent. Her partner and detective, Mitch, serves as her stabilizer. Having Charly as a female character she is more influencing than her being a male character because we see her first as this normal mother and a teacher, and then we see her dramatically change to be someone who is the complete opposite. However, I found she was a bit unconvincing going from the normal lifestyle to having this role as a “tough-girl.” Mitch serves basically as being the more stable and sane one of the pair. He offers her knowledge and lets her know when she is out of line at times. The ending shootout scene is very intense, yet also a bit too unreal for the film. We do see here though, the merging of her past and new lives together. Overall, I thought that this movie was very unrealistic, but it does give us a new perspective on the buddy-cop films.

Entertainingly Bad

Filled with plot holes and bad acting, The Long Kiss Goodnight was probably one of the worst action movies I have seen in years. Yet, because of how unbeleivable the movie was, it actually made it quite entertaining to analyze. Gina Davis' character as Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore transition from being a teacher/mom to a spy is laughable in part to her horrible acting. For example, in the freezer scene, Charly Baltimore begins to embrace her daughter and cry even though a couple scenes prior she refused to acknowledge her daughter as hers. The final scene is even worse. There is no way that Charly Batimore's character could return to Samantha Caine's character and live with the family that she did not create. Gina Davis' acting really came to fault in the torture scene, for when she was raised out of water for the first time, instead of breathing spastically Davis is screaming like a dying animal. Ohh and where did that white dress come from, she wasn't wearing it in the previous scene. One other thing I caught was that when Baltimore grabbed the sub-machine gun from the burning man's side (he must had been burning there for a good 10 minutes) not only did it not burn her, but the gun still worked. If bullets are exposed to extreme temperatures, lets say a fire, the gun powder will ignite sending bullets in every direction.
I think that Samuel L. Jackson's character Mitch Henessey is put into The Long Kiss Goodnight as comic releif. Anyone that can live after being shot in the chest and blown out of two three level windows is definately not human. My question to Henessey would be how did he manage to gain the strength and kill the driver of the car, and then have the knowledge to put the car in the back of the truck so that he could dramatically break out of the back of the truck to save the day. I mean, when he hear's Charlie Baltimore's cry for help on the radio, he looks like he just woke up.
On the topic of plot holes, I found a whole lot of them. For one, how did the duo get all these different cars. Another was how did the duo get out of the freezing cold water so fast after being blown out of a third story building. Not only that, how is it possible to run away from an explosion and actually be able to hear Henessey comment before the duo get blown out the window. Or how about when the gun falls off the side of bridge and conveniently lands on a metal bar in arm's reach of the bad guy during the final fight scene. Even worse was what was the purpose of Brian Cox's character. The Duo get saved by Cox at the train station, only to be doubted and eventually hit with a tire iron on the back of the head and have his car stolen. Magically he reappears in the next scene, quite quickly I might add, to meet back up with Henessey. Despite the fact that Cox could overcome a blow so quickly and run an unknown distance to only be apprehended with Henessey, it does not give his character justice in the next scene. For in the next scene, Cox character's body is swimming with the fishes.

This is Dani, the long kiss goodnight

“The Long Kiss Goodnight” was an interesting movie to say the least. In this movie we see more of the good cop bad cop that we saw in “Training Day”. Although in “The Long Kiss Goodnight” it is hard to tell here who was the good cop and who was the bad cop at first. When they used the term assassin I always think of something negative so I thought that of the female character. What is definite in this movie though is that the female character is more of the mentor especially when the black cop says “I’ll see you when you rescue me”. This shows that she was more dominant and also possibly intelligent in thinking differently than the other characters would think. She was able to sneak around the people who were trying to catch her and kill her. As for what we talked about in class such as a family cop, indeed she was. In the beginning she is very involved with her family and as her memory starts coming back she slips for a moment and then comes back to reality about her daughter. I wish the movie had ended more with showing her reunite with her family because I personally thought that it was an important part of the story. I mean 8 years of it was with the man and this daughter that she wasn’t sure of the father. As for by the book, she definitely was not. She was doing things more of her way or the highway and they high way wasn’t in sight. I felt that she didn’t really have a rulebook to go by either because it was as if she was fighting what was supposed to be the good guys.

I am not going to lie, this was the only movie that we watched in this class that I really did not like. While it was entertaining, I just found it way too out there. This woman went from a school teacher to a trained assassin in 1 day, just because some memories came back to her. I know it is a movie, and there are obviously aspects of the other movies that were at least slightly unrealistic, but so much of this was way too far fetched. Aside from my 2 sense, there were some aspects of this movie that I found interesting.

This movie was completely unique when compared to the others that we watched. It is the only movie where either of the main characters are female. However, in this movie there was no aspect of discrimination or ridicule because of her gender. It can be argued that race was a factor in some if not all of the movies we watched (with the exception of Se7en), but in this film, there was none of that. Samual A. Jackson's character might have been black, but that did not affect the film at all. It is also the first film we have seen where the black man played the least knowledgable character.

This is also the only movie that we watched where the main characters were not actual police officers. King allows "heroes" to be any sort of heroic person, so Charley Baltimore definitely fits the characteristics of a hero. In addition, this movie also more clearly defines the position of the sidekick than any of the other movies, with Mitch being the sidekick.

I definitely believe that this movie was a great fit for the class, I just personally did not like it nearly as much as any of the other films.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

The Long Kiss Goodnight is a bit unrealistic movie. A former CIA assasin comes down with amnesia and is suddenly the most popular woman in town-Mrs. Claus, PTA, school teacher, and cookie baking wife, be realistic. So when it just so happens that she gets into a car accident, and let me point out that she has time to walk over to the deer and kill it but not enough time to run and save the man in the burning car?? Then in the next scene the man who sees her on tv and who was suppose to kill her before, breaks out of jail and comes to finish her off, it just happened so perfectly. She suddenly remembers how to kill and forgets how to be a mother and husband, so the following day she sets out on a road trip with somewhat of a stranger on a quest to find her identity. And as time progresses she changes as a total housewife to a professional killer. Her attitude changes, she now refers to her daughter as the kid instead of her kid. She wants to forget all about her happy life and be a killer again. As the mood changes you see Samuel l Jacksonon's character, Mitch, try and help her remember who she really is, especially when she tried to seduce him. Genna Davis's character, Samantha, of Charlie, turns out to be alot smarter than she really is, and when the child is brought back into the picture she is reminded that she is destined to be that mother and wife once again.
This movie however is very very different from the others. With the main partners being a black man and a white woman, you sence the vast differences. Essentially these two people come from very different backgrounds, Samantha, a mid class white woman, and Mitch a lower class black man, come together in this film. In the end together they act as both the heroes and it is hard to really say exactly who the real heroe is beacuse throught the whole movie one helps the other and the other way around. They both seem to be mentee and mentors to each other, Charlie, teaching and helping Mitch to survive, and Mitch helping Samantha to remember who she really needs to be and is. Overall this film brought about the different sexes and partners well, but as a whole a very complicated film.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

Okay so I thought "Training Day" was going to be the most unconventional of the movies we would watch in class, but after seeing "The Long Kiss Goodnight," I was wrong. This film, to me, goes against most of the stereotypes in both books by King and Guerrero.
First of all, the plot is not just about a criminal that the cop pair is trying to find, but a personal mystery as well. It includes flashbacks and a cop (spy) that is a woman. Of the two, unlike Lethal Weapon, Se7en, or other films we've studied, the black character is not the more experienced character or the mentor. Charly is a woman, a trained assassin, and the hero of this film.
One part of the movie that goes along with stereotypes mentioned in the books are the cops' family lives. Mitch Henessey is divorced and longs for a relationship with his son. As Samantha Cain, Charly has a husband she loves, a daughter, and is very involved with her community. However, when she transforms back into Charly, she nearly forgets about her family and at first doesn't want anything to do with them. She remembers that they are very important to her and does anything she can to save her daughter.
One other thing I noticed a lot of were references to sodomy and homosexuality. If someone was trying to stay out of trouble, it was o they wouldn't get "ass-fucked." Nice.
A lot of the time, Henessey didn't really know what was going on. He relied on Charly to protect him and figure things out. This role kind of switched, because at the beginning Mitch was the one who was in charge and ready to figure things out. Overall, I liked this movie because it something different that I wasn't expecting.

Never underestimate a woman (especially a trained assassin)

Well, a little unbelievable, to say the least. I mean, who gets blown up three times, shot, punched, drowned, stabbed, etc and still lives? Charlie and Mitch have more lives than a pair of cats. But, the movie did raise some interesting gender issues. The "bad guys" always seemed to underestimate Charlie due to her femininity. The obvious way to kill her would be to put a gun to her head, but no. Everyone thinks she's too weak, too stuck in her old life, or too girly. The viewer recognizes her indestructibility, but none of the villains believe her when she says "Spare me now and i leave you the use of your legs" or "You're going to die screaming, and i'm going to be there to watch". Only Mitch really seems to understand her; he sees through her attempt to seduce him, realizing that is only a misguided attempt to forget her 8 years as Samantha.

Another issue raised by the movie is whether or not Charlie will take care of "the" kid whom Samantha gave birth to, or if she will abandon the family. At first the viewer believes that Charlie could care less, but, as the movie progresses, she begins to refer to the girl as "my kid", rather than "the kid" and by doing so takes responsibility. The movie takes advantage of the stereotypical view of women as mothers first, and professionals second. The viewer wants Charlie to go back to her family, to be a normal school teacher and mom, despite her desire to return to her original profession, and her obvious proficiency

Although it may be easy to define Charlie as Hero, and Henessy as sidekick, it is hard to pinpoint the other elements of their characters. Charlie/Samantha changes radically throughout the movie, and never really seems to be an outsider or insider. She appears out of her league when the violence first starts, but by the end of the movie she appears to be a more than capable assassin, who knows the inner workings of government and conspiracy. Henessy on the other hand appears to be a mentor/protector figure at the beginning of the film, but by the end seems to be in over his head. He is a low budget/ex-con detective. He finds himself bloodied (or even dead?) and confused by the end, and would appear to be on the outside. Henessy is also hard to fit into the lonely cop niche, because he does seem to be reasonably well adjusted, despite being divorced. He also seems to have formed a stable relationship with Charlie by the end of the movie. Charlie could easily be called a rogue cop, but she hardly seems to have a choice; she is presented with many "Kill or be killed" situations.

All in all i feel that this movie breaks a number of the common themes, roles and characteristics of cop movies. First by including a women hero, then by creating a hero who changes drastically throughout the film, and third by keeping the relationship between "hero" and "sidekick" extremely dynamic.

Oy!

The Long Kiss Goodnight is one of the most ridiculous movies that were meant to be taken seriously that I have ever seen. It has such a flimsy plot: a “lost” CIA agent with amnesia rediscovers her past because a stupid foe breaks out of prison and tries to kill her. This action leads to more and more and more until the audience discovers that the bad guys are being paid by the head of the CIA so that he can get more funds from Congress. What an inspired story! The screenplay is just as good. The following are some of my favorite (and by favorite I mean incredibly laughable, and not in a good or funny way) lines from the movie:

Charlie/Samantha: “No, it’s not a fantasy! I’m in the goddamn PTA!”

Mitch: “So kill ‘em for me, bitch! What are you good for?!”

Truck Driver: “I think I’m dying!”
Timothy: “Continue dying…out.”

Charlie: “Oh, honey… only four inches?”

Timothy: “You’ll feel me.”

I do realize that these lines are meant to pull laughs, but they are incredibly absurd to me. The writing for this movie was really bad.

As far as the biracial buddy cop aspect goes, I don’t feel that race really beings much to the table for this film. The only real impact that the difference in race makes is for purposes of dialogue. For instance, when Charlie is coming on to Mitch in the hotel room, Mitch responds by saying, “White lady’s seducin’ the colored help.” It’s a laugh, and obviously influenced by race. The male/female pairing is more influential. It is very apparent that the makers of this movie wanted Geena Davis to be very ass-kickingly masculine for her role. At the same time, though, the Charlie character eventually does realize that she does in fact love her daughter; she had earlier said something along the lines of, “I didn’t have the kid, Samantha did! No body asked me!” This change illustrates the progression Charlie makes in becoming a mixture of both herself and Samantha. Mitch also changes, but his are not so personal. His changes are more out of necessity. He was a fairly laughable private eye until he got mixed up in Charlie’s life. Suddenly he is being shot at and therefore must adapt and retaliate with that violience. I don’t feel he changes all that much.

The hero/sidekick relationship is far more apparent in The Long Kiss Goodnight than it has been in the last three films we have watched. Mitch is sidekick to Charlie’s heroic role. At the beginning, both hero and sidekick are outsiders to the world Charlie had lived in, but as the story progresses, Charlie leaves Mitch behind and becomes an insider once more.

Not much more to say, I don’t think. Not a very good movie at all.

Be careful when KISSING girls

The Long Kiss Goodnight allows us to analyze not only the bi-racial buddy cop genre, but also the effects of a female hero. It is actually one of the few films King mentions as an exception to the general stereotypes of leading female warriors in cop flicks. Unlike the majority, Kiss gives Charley Baltimore a fair ass whippin', giving her no leniency for being a woman. In that sense, the movie does a wonderful job of establishing her credibility as a CIA Assassin because if she can take it like a man, she must be O.K. to do the job. This shows Hollywood's idea that one must act manly in order to be a CIA agent. When still a victim of her amnesia, Samantha Cane is a loving mom, wife, and teacher. In the early stages of remembering, when Charley emerges as the personality, her voice is deeper, movements are more rugged, and her belief system is hardened. This personality shines through as she fully becomes her old self and not until the near end of the movie does she somewhat combine the two different women into one, and eventually decide towards the feminine one of the two... now that she's done with the job. The only person in the movie who ever womanizes her is Mitch, her sidekick. He calls her a "foxy bitch" after she escapes from impending doom in Niagra Falls. Somehow this is acceptable because the film was produced during the 90s at a time where blacks are allowed to say whatever they want, no matter how degrading.

Charley and Mitch rapidly fall into the Hero and Sidekick stereotypes. Charley, as hero, has numerous break out fights and obviously has more experience and intelligence relating to the situation than her partner. Mitch, as sidekick, provides comic relief and never seems to be too sure of his combat skills. Charley is always asserting her dominance over him, uncharacteristic for a female in her role, and even kicks him out of a moving car when he expressing his feelings that she "doesn't need [him] anymore." In working together, the movie was careful to not "miscegenate" (King) the bi-racial pair. With a white woman as lead, it becomes easier for the black male to refuse her advances, considering that if the races were switched, sex would have been inevitable (King p 13). This demonstrates that race becomes an even more important underlying factor in movies where a woman plays the lead.

Long Kiss Goodnight

First off, Geena Davis, I mean Charlie, kicked the most ass out of all the cop movies we have seen! Geena Davis' character was developed much differently then all the other films, sort - of similar to Ethan Hawk's role as Hoyt. Like Hoyt, she starts off as a quiet, timid and scared outsider. But as the movie progresses she ( like Hoyt) changes into an aggressive cop. Instrestingly enough, she starts off as a family person... but once she realizes her old identity, she makes the comment, i didn't have the kid she did ( meaning Samantha). This also implies what Kings noted as "real people suck" pg. 207. Meaning her family life, her normal life sucks. She also indicates this when we see the torn picture of her family in the trash. It is as if she wants to forget that they are a part of her life. As becomes 'Charlie' again, she becomes Samuel L. Jackson's mentor, and he is her sidekick. However, i believe that at the end of the film he is actually the hero. She is radioing for help and he comes to the rescue. At the end of the film we see that she has given up her spy lifestyle for her family.

The issue of gender does not really come up in this movie. When we watched silence of the lambs, Clarece (sp?) was treated differently then the rest of the cops becuase she was female. For example, they talked in private as if they needed to protect her from hearing the gruesome details of the sex crime. On the contrary, Geena Davis' character was absolutely not treated any differently becuase she was a female. In no way did anyone hold back on harming her becuase she was a woman. In fact, since she was so tough she got it just as bad.

Belated Beginning…

A blog on the books we read over winter break:

I’ll admit after reading most peoples blogs about the books I became slightly scared. You see, I actually enjoyed Heroes in Hard Times by Neil King. Yes it was redundant but it was also funny. I am huge fan of innuendos of any kind and this book had a fair handful of them. I also enjoy a good set of statistics every once in a while. Although numbers can lie it just didn’t seem probable that he would make up all of that research. Of the few movies in the genre I had watched when I first read the book I could already find his theories making sense. He “argue(d) that heroes seek not authority but attention and pleasure. They are less upstanding than childlike and they have a hard time dealing with adults.” (King, pg.173). This argument made sense to me along with the others on sidekicks being the therapists and women not really being present in most of the movies. It was also hard to disagree with some of the theories he brought up in chapter seven: Sodomy and Guts. There is a such a clear almost romantic relationship going on between so many of the buddies that it was easy for me to agree with him. Though it was mainly King’s pages of quotes and descriptions of scenes in which homoerotic tension or suggestions were present that got me on his side.

I also agreed with most people that Ed Guerrero’s book was better written, more concise, and more formal in general. Guerrero’s book was well-argued and he made several points that I hadn’t even thought of thinking of before. The way in which he wrote about each “movie-movement” made it easier to see the influences each one had on the following, ending with the biracial buddy cop genre. Having read Guerrero’s book first I could find many places in King’s book where threads from the plantation genre were being discussed and see the way all the movies had common threads linking them together.

Overall I enjoyed both books. Guerrero’s gave me a great history of the African-American film movement and included some great pictures from movies I had never even heard of. Neal King’s book provided me with short summaries on movies I would now like to watch at some point and taught me more about cop action movies than I ever though I would need to know. King even provided a few laughs along the way.

Now onward to watching more cop action movies!

Wolves

“You’re going to do some damage out here… Crimefighter.” (Alonzo , Training Day)

This line jumped out at me as I thought about this cop action movie on the whole. Alonzo was obviously completely right (though I doubted the authenticity of the comment) and by the end of the movie I think he encountered Jake doing more damage than he had anticipated. There was something about the acid-tongued detective Harris that just didn’t seem quite right from the very beginning when he is introduced in the diner. By the end we know how incredibly corrupt he was but it was the wonder at how his corruption would affect Jake that kept the plot going for me.

As an idealist, family man that just wanted to improve his quality of life, police officer Jake Hoyt was baptized by fire into what the mean streets of L.A. can be like. Also, the way they affect the people who originally set out to clean them up of violence and badness in general. Although both characters were given about equal amounts of screen time this was one of the easiest movies we’ve watched up to now for me to decide whom my hero would be. And my hero was…Jake Hoyt, the morally upright (slightly uptight), trained by a female, cop who jokingly said he should have been a fireman. I guess the villain is pretty easy to identify if you’re a fireman (it’s the fire).

Unfortunately for Jake it was a little harder to determine whether our black man of the movie actually had a good side or if he was just completely rotten on the inside while maintaining a rather decent looking outside. I was glad by the end when Hoyt finally is pushed over the edge into taking action. Although slightly hard to believe he could grow so much from one scene to the next, it seemed that all the advice that Alonzo had been spewing at him throughout the movie finally kicked in and he turned into a wolf (albeit {and hopefully} only momentarily). Alonzo’s arrogance came out at me as a mix between Virgil’s confidence and the plantation owner’s corrupt sense of superiority, which was clearly visible in his final scene in “the jungle”. I don’t think I could call Alonzo a sidekick because although he does give endless amounts of advice as an amoral mentor he was clearly the villain of the story, the dirty cop that talked so much of being a wolf to fight the wolves that he actually became one himself.

Alas, how can a wolf protect the sheep? Officer Hoyt was much more of a sheep herder/ collie dog than a wolf and dog is man(kind)’s best friend.

Training Day:Study of Ethics

This movie is effective in its structure because of the great imbalance of the two main characters, Ethan Hawke and Denzel. Hawke's character learns from a very early part of the story that the way Alonzo (Denzel) does business is a little different then Hawke's previous experience as a rookie cop. Hawke quickly finds himself in a moral dillemma. Should he do the right thing and not prosper individually or should he look the other way and welcome his oncoming success. Hawke's character represents youth and naivete. He is unsure of Alonzo's real intentions for him, but he does give the controversial figure respect. Hawke throughout the film must decide whether or not he is not only cut out for the force, but also able to work under an egotistical trigger-happy psychopath.
The theme of experience verse youth can be seen in the majority of the works we have watched so far in class. Usually the experienced cop can show guidance to the young cop and in the process of them working together the elderly cop can not only help make the younger cop a better officer, but also a better man. The greatest twist in Training Day is that the elder cop, although more experienced, wants to get Jake (Hawke) into corruption, drugs, and murder. Alonzo's claim to always "do what you need to do" is a nice basic philosophy to success, but among the things Alonzo needs to do is trick his partner into smoking PCP, stealing money and planting narcotics, and murdering and robbing a good friend. Alonzo represents the mature failure of a man. He is old enough and smart enough to live a good successful clean life, but he chooses sin and corruption as an outlet for being a police officer.

THIS IS KIMBERLY

"Training Day" taps into the world of bad Los Angeles neighborhoods and does not withhold from using any stereotypes in the film. Minorities are portrayed as low class criminal gangs. There is only one white man shown in a bad light in this film: the addict rapist. There is a sense of realism here though; most gangs in the L.A. area are of a minority ethnicity. Alonzo Harris seems to be more accepted in these neighborhoods, the question is whether it is because he is black or because he is known. He advises Hoyt never to come to a certain block, "The Jungle," without him. However, there is irony at the end when Hoyt is given the upper hand there and Harris becomes the outsider. The relationship with Harris and Hoyt is very complex. Instantly, Harris has the upper hand because Hoyt is the new guy and Harris uses this power unjustly. Through a couple of betrays, Hoyt continually goes back to Harris and accepts that he was trying to teach him something. Hoyt is very trusting and naïve, which shows his unfamiliarity with the area and the people in it. Everything Harris does is corrupt, and everything Hoyt witnesses that is corrupt he does not approve. Hoyt sort of plays a conscience to Harris’s bad decisions, but does not succeed. Harris is stuck in his ways and eventually influences Hoyt to stoop down to his level. At the end of the movie when Hoyt has nearly survived being killed by a group of Mexicans (who Harris paid to kill Hoyt), he returns to bring justice to the neighborhood and battle Harris. He could have easily walked away from the day and went home. Therefore, Harris influenced him to protect himself and fight when not necessary. Hoyt and Harris influenced each other, although Hoyt was the sole person to live to experience it. I believe “Training Day” produced a good film about corruption among cops in bad neighborhoods.

This is Dani, on training dayyyy

“Training Day” I had a lot of mixed feelings about. In this movie I did NOT feel that the black cop was the wiser, more intelligent cop as it was in “Se7en” or “In the Heat of the Night”, instead I felt that he was a sneaky criminal himself. Examples of this was that he was very back stabbing to people who were his “friends”. The white cop on the other hand was the “rookie”, but I wouldn’t label him as the intelligent cop either, because that wasn’t the case. I think that this movie is harder to compare to “Se7en” or “In the Heat of the Night” because of the facts that the other two movies followed more of the same story plot of a mystery having to be solved whereas in “Training Day” it was basically showing you the literal training of this new officer. The other two movies also took place over a period of time, such as a week or so. “Training Day” was all a one day shot. In the sense of good cop bad cop it is obvious that the good cop was the white cop and the bad cop was the black cop, also the white cop I guess you can say was the clear hero in this movie as it was harder to tell in the other movies who was the sidekick and who was the hero. In the beginning of the movie the white cop is perceived as a side kick because he is the one in training but in reality he is the one that in the end is going to save more people from being killed and tricked by the black cop.