|
ABOUT
THE PRODUCTION
You have to decide if you?re a sheep or a wolf, if you want to go
to the grave or if you want to go home.
? Det. Sgt. Alonzo Harris to rookie Jake Hoyt
Training
Day is a movie that comes straight from the streets it depicts ?
a product of the match up between screenwriter David Ayer, who grew
up in South Central Los Angeles, and director Antoine Fuqua, who
grew up on the rough side of Pittsburgh. Both men are intimately
familiar with the daily, potentially explosive face-offs between
cops and criminals in urban America. ?Our generation doesn?t have
a Vietnam, and we don?t have any external wars, but the war we?re
fighting is within ? it?s inside the very heart and core of America,?
says Antoine Fuqua. ?In communities across the country, the police
are fighting the people and vice versa. It?s an explosive situation
and it?s something that urgently needs to be talked about.?
As
a 1998 Los Angeles Times report on 51 major urban police departments
noted, on average, any police unit can ?expect to have ten officers
charged per year with abuse of police authority, five arrested for
a felony, seven for a misdemeanor, three for theft and four for
domestic violence.? Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,
New Orleans and Washington D.C. are among the many U.S. cities that
have experienced major police scandals in the last few years, most
involving narcotics enforcement. Los Angeles, in particular, was
recently rocked by the worst police scandal in its history ? accusations
that officers in the city?s high-crime, gang-heavy Rampart division
engaged in brutality, fabricated evidence and told outright lies
in criminal investigation reports, while also stealing money and
drugs from felons.
Rising
young screenwriter David Ayer grew up in this same area of Los Angeles,
where he personally witnessed the ways in which hardened gang members
and equally hardened inner city cops danced around one another.
Long before the Rampart scandal, Ayer wanted to show how it really
is in these war zones within America ? and just how hard it is to
walk the line between cop and criminal in a place where neither
can afford to show any mercy. In 1995, he began writing a screenplay
that would prove to be prophetic.
?I
wanted to capture the rough and raw reality of the law enforcement
mind-set in inner cities and look at where it comes from and also
where it can lead,? says Ayer. ?I wanted to ask the question: ?When
a cop goes bad, what does it do not only to the man but to the community???
While
writing Training Day, Ayer unflinchingly immersed himself in the
day-to-day rapport between gang-bangers and undercover officers
in Los Angeles? toughest neighborhoods. ?I spent a lot of time observing
and talking with people who live and work in these areas,? he says.
?I really wanted to get beneath the surface of what it?s like to
be a cop out here and how the community looks at them.?
Ayer
put most of what he learned about how and why cops use down and
dirty methods into the character of Alonzo, who he calls ?a guy
who?s so good at his job, it?s come at the expense of his soul.?
He wanted Alonzo to be a seductive character, someone you want to
believe in, want to care about, but who exists in a moral gray zone
where right and wrong are no longer clear to him. ?I myself had
many different feelings while writing him,? Ayer admits. ?There
were times when I thought he was the greatest person in the world
and other times when I was furious with myself for writing the words
he speaks. One thing I knew for sure is that Alonzo himself believes
he is right. He doesn?t see himself as evil ? in his own heart,
he has decided that he is doing what is best for everybody.?
As
a counterpoint, Ayer then created the character of Jake Hoyt, the
young rookie who, until this day, had no idea how things really
operate in the streets. ?The interesting thing is that Jake is who
Alonzo used to be. Jake?s a young, daisy-fresh rookie from the Valley.
He?s a guy who became a cop because he really believed in justice,?
says Ayer. ?But the more he sees of Alonzo, who is so incredibly
charismatic and effective and yet a real trickster, the more he
has to question his beliefs until, in the end, he has to make his
own decisions about what?s right and wrong.? Once Ayer had created
his characters, he made the decision to tell the story over one
adrenaline-fueled 24-hour period. ?I am fascinated by the kind of
day a person has where everything is transformed,? he says. ?I liked
the idea that Ethan Hawke?s character wakes up in the morning, kisses
his wife goodbye, goes to work and comes home a different man. He
will never be the same again.?
It
was this gritty intensity and transformational power that drew producers
Bobby Newmyer and Jeff Silver to the script. ?What attracted us
was the incredible level of realism,? says Silver. ?This story hits
you right in the gut with the actuality of what it?s like to be
on the streets as an undercover cop. It?s an exciting ride, sheer
adrenaline entertainment, but it?s also about two men in the midst
of a moral quandary that affects us all.?
Adds
Bobby Newmyer: ?You can really feel that this is a script written
from David Ayer?s experience and knowledge of the streets. There?s
real authenticity here behind an exciting story.?
?In
the end,? Silver concludes, ?this is a movie about choices ? and
it leaves the audience to make their own. It raises some really
important questions: When it comes to fighting crime, is there one
moral code or are there many? Which do we want more: effective police
or police who follow the letter of the law? And can there be any
compromise in between??
The
heat and intensity of Training Day also derives from the urban vision
of director Antoine Fuqua, who strove to bring the audience not
only into what officers experience on the outside ? from chases
to shoot-outs to life-or-death moments ? but on the inside as they
grapple with an amoral world of drug dealers, murderer, rapists
and thieves. Fresh from his stylish thriller The Replacement Killers,
Fuqua wanted to create a gritty, unflinching, fast-moving intro
to life on the other side of the legal line.
From
the moment he read David Ayer?s script, Fuqua had in mind the raw
realism of films such as Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico, but with
his own contemporary street-wise visual style. ?I was immediately
drawn to the script because it reminded me of the great cop dramas
of the Seventies,? he says. ?It?s about something but it?s also
a really interesting challenge for a filmmaker because you have
to take these characters through an incredible amount of action
and transformation in just one day.?
For
Fuqua, capturing the visceral nature of life on the streets was
paramount. ?I only wanted to shoot in real locations with real people
in the background,? he says. ?I want to make it clear that these
are everyday experiences in some people?s lives. The reality of
life for cops and criminals in the inner-city isn?t something we
should hide from ? it?s something we should be talking about and
thinking about.?
Fuqua
came to the project with a street credibility that uniquely prepared
him for what was to come.
?Antoine
Fuqua might be the only director around who can move through Hollywood
and the gritty streets of Watts or Rampart or Crenshaw with equal
agility,? says Bobby Newmyer. ?And that?s what this movie required.?
Jeff
Silver concurs: ?Antoine brought the ability to capture the mean
streets of L.A. in an honest and revealing way, but also with a
visual style that makes every scene exciting ? whether it?s a major
action sequence or just two guys in a car talking.?
The
cast was also moved by Fuqua?s personal passion for capturing the
grace and grit of these often ignored communities. Says Denzel Washington:
?Antoine brings both an edge and a heart to this story that makes
it so much more powerful than your standard cop thriller. He turned
it into something dangerous and important.?
|
Review
by 
