Payback's a Bitch.
Training Day is sort of a Buddy Cop movie, for it does have humor, action and bonding. In a way, it’s like a reverse Buddy Cop movie. Where first they struggle to get along, then they begin to open up and get along. However it doesn’t take long for Alonzo to betray Hoyt. This movie takes place over the span of only one day, so there doesn’t have a lot of time for an enemy to gain power and for the two cops to get to know each other real well. Hoyt is eager to impress Alonzo with the hopes of one day becoming a detective. He is very wary to compromise his beliefs and what he believes to be good police ethics. He wants to become a detective so badly that he actually follows Alonzo for a bit, however he is high on PCP the entire day and is definitely on edge. Alonzo has the experience and shows Hoyt the ropes, however, when Hoyt becomes too much of a nuisance. Alonzo tires to have Hoyt killed to protect the money he stole from his drug dealing friend. When Hoyt is allowed to live, thanks to proper police ethics, He goes after Alonzo and essentially sentences his mentor to death by taking the money from him. This film took the Buddy cop one step further in forcing the two cops to fight one another instead of some evil upper class villain.
Race does play a part in this film more than it did Se7en. Alonzo would often make racial remarks as a joke when joking around with Hoyt. Race also played a part with the acceptance of Hoyt into many of the environments that Hoyt was exposed to when traveling with Alonzo. In the final scene Alonzo calls on his fellow members of the black community to kill Hoyt and they refuse. Alonzo basically blackmails them all into doing what he wants all the time, so when Alonzo is in a position of vulnerability, the members reuse to help him. Alonzo is a victim of his own oppression, because he oppresses his own people.
posted by Sweet Sweetback (DIrvin) at 6:29 PM
3 Comments:
So he is a black oppressor, eh?
I do think that is what Guerrero might suggest.
After all, at whose bidding does he do his work? The Three Wise Men. All middle aged white guys who sit in the darkness and make pronouncements.
So is Alonzo then merely a victim? Is he as guilty as Jake of merely wanting advancement and he therefore does whatever his boss tells him to do? Like Jake does with Alonzo?
I agree. When I was watching the movie I noticed that all of Alonzo's henchmen are black or hispanic and they are usually represented in a bad part of town. I abuses the african american's that he comes in contact with just to get what he wants. Alonzo also exploits Roger, a white man, which shows that he would take advantage of any race. The only people that Alonzo cannot toy with are the three wise men. Their wealthy and important status does not allow Alonzo's street methods to harm them. They just laugh it off because they already know what scum he is
I agree with the notion that the film is a reverse buddy cop. The two officers meet each other, and have their initial conflict, and grow relatively close in the beginning of the film. As the plot progresses, through the actions that Alonzo and Jake do, the two become more separated by such events like the robbing of Robert, the run-in with the Latinos, and finally the shoot out in Alonzo's apartment. Where as in the classic buddy cop, the two people become closer. But in this film the two become distant because of their moral beliefs and that they try to kill each other in the end of the film.
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