jeffbase34

I watched Training Day last weekend. My 4th time viewing this film, but my first time on blu-ray. Training Day is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Denzel and Ethan are so amazing in this film.

A good actor can tell a story with just his eyes. Denzel was just the ultimate badass, a guy skilled at manipulating people, bringing them into his dark world. You can read the coldness, immorality in his eys. Ethan starred as the rookie cop, caving into peer pressure by the desire to have success in his field. You can read fear, and naivety in his eyes as well.


The director has stated that they filmed the movie in LA gang land to add a real texture to the movie. You can feel and almost smell LA. The lingo and gang talk was all researched and authentic.

I am just curious how this movie holds up today. Is this lingo and talk still the same in gang land? Do people still call each other their Dawg? Is it relevant to today's gang culture? I'm also curious how deep these under cover cops really take it. Do they really do drugs to blend into the culture?

OldBoy

couldn't tell ya. after Bloods & Crips Weekly was discontinued i have been so out of the loop.

Brent L

I gotta admit Scott, I laughed.

inri222

Do people still get their shit pushed in?

The Bus

Dr Mabuse

"Breathe dog."

Yep, that's still a cold ass line delivered just hard as hell.

'Training Day' is still realistic.

wm lopez

Gangbangers as heroes towards the end?

Jray

I don't think it was realistic when it was released....?? Even though Denzel Washington got a lot of love for his performance, I always thought the movie was a little too over the top and somewhat cartoonish.

Mabuse

Yeah, it wasn't authentic when it was new. It's a slick and polished studio film, not an authentic portrait of gang life. Gang life is dull and squalid...a truely authentic film would not be entertaining or interesting.

Real cop work is also dull and not entertaining.

harrydoyle

I don't know about heroes, but they did prove to be at least honorable and have a "code" I guess...

theflicker

Gah. Which one to believe? One of them's a doctor though . . .

The Bus

stingermck

Training Day is a film I like, that I never feel like watching. Just too over the top sometimes.

Give me a random episode of The Shield instead.

Giantrobo

Sure it was over the top. It's a movie. But I things were somewhat based on some of the craziness that goes on in the streets with a little dramatic license mixed in.

Hokeyboy

It was never realistic, especially when you consider some of the groan-inducing contrivances the movie utilized.

I suppose the most unrealistic feature of the movie was casting Ethan 'Stephen Hawking Could SO Kick My Ass' Hawke in a "tough guy" role.

jeffbase34

Ethan wasn't cast as a tough guy role. He was cast as a push over rookie cop desperate to please. He had several opportunities to get out of that car and walk away. He didn't fight back until things got really extreme.

According to the director, the cast and crew spent a lot of time researching with undercover cops and even gang leaders. The guy who played Smiley hung out with Latino gangs. He also said there is an unseen level of corruption similiar to the movie all over the place. The part about flipping pigeons and The Jungle was real too. Very fascinating commentary. Been meaning to watch History Channel's gangland as well.

Larry C.

This movie was ok I also never felt the need to rewatch it. But realistic? Hell no.

Ash Ketchum

I never found the film remotely realistic. It was a seriously contrived cop thriller. It was supposedly inspired by a real case of corruption, but I use the word "inspired" loosely. The storyline in the film didn't match the events of the real case at all. And Ethan Hawke turning superhuman at the end and attracting all that spontaneous black support on the street just pushed the film into the realm of the absurd.

You want a "realistic" cop thriller, you have to go to cop films based on true events. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) comes to mind. Compare TRAINING DAY to other L.A.-set cop films like the ones based on Joseph Wambaugh novels. Check out THE NEW CENTURIONS (1972) or THE ONION FIELD (1979). (You can pass on THE CHOIRBOYS; it's completely insane, thanks to Aldrich's direction, and Wambaugh disowned it and tried to take his name off it. I love it, but I wouldn't call it realistic.)

dino88

You're asking this question on an internet site dedicated to dvds. Do you really think there are any gang bangers or undercover cops reading this right now?

Dr Mabuse

When LA decided to actually start enforcing the rules about investigating the finances of LA's Rampart gang division, to see if they had sources of income they couldn't account for, they had hundreds of long time officers threaten to quit rather than have their finances investigated.

Sometimes the truth is so scary people would rather believe it's not real.



Some of you might look into Rafael A Perez and the LA Rampart scandal. Remember, the things disclosed there are only what investigators found out about. They robbed banks, did home invasions, dealt drugs, shot unarmed people, stole drugs and money from dealers and gangs, etc.

My quote above was about the 'lingo', which was a direct question by the OP. No one figured that out?

'Training Day' is a movie, not a documentary. Documentaries on the stuff of LA cops are more intense and hard to believe.

benh911

Apone

A Maori actor Cliff Curtis playing a Latino gangster? That is realistic.

jeffbase34

I could care less if the movie matched a real life event detail by detail. It's a movie. I wanted a good story, and Training Day delivers with complex characters. Everyone here is barking how unrealistic the movie is without offering any details why. Is gangland peaceful now? Would I feel safe crusiing the streets of Watts at 12am? Or do I need a golden pass to cruise through Imperial Courts?

The movie was filmed in the real areas with real gang bangers as extras. Seems pretty realistic to me.

dx23

I have similar questions: Is West Side Story still realistic today? Is The Warriors still realistic today? If so, I don't want to go to NY because I could get mug and beaten by a gang of baseball players with painted faces.

Fist of Doom

Is Death Wish 3 realistic? Those cops seem to have a slow response time.