Training Day

Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 film runs Jake Hoyt’s first day in narcotics with detective Alonzo Harris from morning sun to a rain soaked project at night. The first real test is not violent: Alonzo makes Jake smoke a PCP laced blunt at gunpoint, so corruption arrives as training. The second matters more: Alonzo’s collapse comes from debt, not police work. He owes the Russians a million dollars for a mobster he killed in Las Vegas, so the day is a fundraising run and Jake the cover. No court delivers the verdict; the neighbourhood that feared Alonzo blocks his escape. David Ayer wrote the script; the late 1990s Rampart scandal pushed it to completion, and Washington grew a beard to resemble Rafael Pérez, the officer at its centre. Davis Guggenheim was first attached, Samuel L. Jackson as Alonzo and Matt Damon as Jake. Fuqua got Los Angeles street gangs to let a crew into Imperial Courts for the first time, with real gang members onscreen. After the 11 September attacks the release moved from 21 September to 5 October. Denzel Washington won the lead actor Oscar and Ethan Hawke a supporting nomination. A good fit if the day turning out to be a debt run rearranges the film. Not for anyone who needs an arrest rather than the street blocking Alonzo’s way.