Training Day
After having watched “Training Day”, I have very mixed opinions as to whether or not this movie falls into the buddy cop genre. This was the first time I had seen the movie, so going along with the theme of the other movies we have watched, I figured the two would bond throughout the movie and eventually become a good pair, not try to kill each other. This movie did have several elements that could fall into the buddy cop realm, such as: the initial meeting that didn’t go so well, a perceived gradual warming towards each other, and a crazy fight scene at the end against the enemy; the only twist was that the enemy was the cop. Even though it had some of these requirements in it, something just seemed to be lacking to me, throughout the movie I just could not completely tie it into being a buddy cop movie. At the end my feelings proved to be right, because the ending of the movie makes it to where I can not consider this buddy cop film, a buddy would not screw over his partner like Alonzo did.
As to my reaction to the ending, I can not say that I was completely surprised. From the very first time we are introduced to Alonzo, when he made Jake smoke PCP, I could not trust him at all. There was just something about him that made me think that something was going to go wrong for Jake. I did think it was a very interesting twist to the whole dirty cop thing, the whole fact that he had the entire thing planned out from making Jake smoke, to setting him up for murder, it seemed to be very well planned out, until it backfired. This movie also focused quite a bit on race; the typical stereotypes about African American and Mexican people living in lower class areas were everywhere.
As to my reaction to the ending, I can not say that I was completely surprised. From the very first time we are introduced to Alonzo, when he made Jake smoke PCP, I could not trust him at all. There was just something about him that made me think that something was going to go wrong for Jake. I did think it was a very interesting twist to the whole dirty cop thing, the whole fact that he had the entire thing planned out from making Jake smoke, to setting him up for murder, it seemed to be very well planned out, until it backfired. This movie also focused quite a bit on race; the typical stereotypes about African American and Mexican people living in lower class areas were everywhere.
posted by Danny at 8:04 PM
2 Comments:
What about those depictions of race? How does the film treat these characters? Are they stereotyped? Do they break type?
Is this a movie that Guerrero would love?
In addition would King say that this film still fits his idea of cop films?
At what point does this movie cease being a buddy cop film? I’d say it continues until Jake realizes he cannot trust Alonzo. Until that point, at least in Jake’s mind, their relationship at least resembles that of buddies. After all, as long as Jake believes Alonzo is doing what he does in order to teach him and better prepare him, the rookie will probably see his friend as a kind of stern, semi-sadistic mentor.
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