Analysis Of The Film Training Day - Essay Example

Insert Directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Bobby Newmyer and Jeffrey Silver, America’s 2001 Training Day film features Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in a star studded display of talent. The 122 minute long movie was released on September 21st 2001 and focuses on two narcotics officers from the LAPD in a gang-filled environment of South Central LA and LAPD Rampart Division over a period of 24 hours. Denzel Washington plays a great role as a corrupt police officer while Ethan Hawke plays the part of a rookie officer named Jake Hoyt.

Progressive intensification has been plentifully utilized in the film, more so in the actions of the antagonist, Alonzo Harris, to intricately lead the audience to a climax and final action. Jake Hoyt is a rookie officer on evaluation by the highly decorated officer Alonzo Harris. In the first case, Jake and Alonzo confiscate drugs from some street criminals and Alonzo, with threats, coerces Jake into taking a hit from the confiscated marijuana. Jake takes the marijuana, but Alonzo tells him later on that it was laced with PCP.

This event provides a perfect set up for ensuing scenes. From this action, for example, Alonzo would later threaten to kill Jake for refusing to participate in one of his illicit crimes boasting that the blood tests from Jake’s corpse would reveal presence of PCP, and thus discredit Jake (Training Day, 2001). In the next instance too, Jake spots and subdues attackers who are sexually assaulting a certain high school girl called Letty while Alonzo simply watches. Alonzo orders Letty to leave instead of recording a statement at the police station, telling a shocked Jake that street justice had been served since the two perpetrators had lost their drugs and money, and would inevitably be dealt with by Letty’s vengeful cousins.

Alonzo does well to prime Jake and the audience for what is yet to come (the ‘bigger’ crimes) and attempts to tune Jake’s mind so that in the consequent ‘errands’, Jake would be okay with the corrupt dealings. As we see in the later stages of the film, taking crime money from criminals instead of handing it in as evidence was street justice in Alonzo’s perspective, and it is this point of view that he tries to instill in Jake in the incident with Letty. In the third circumstance, Alonzo meets a group of elite police officers, otherwise known as ‘The Three Wise Men’.

They tell Alonzo to leave the town since it had come to their knowledge that Alonzo owed money to the Russian Mafia which put his life at risk. However, the arrogant detective, Alonzo Harris, chooses not to leave town believing that he can manage the situation on his own (Training Day, 2001). This decision thus sets stage for a final bloody and tragic conclusion to a well acted and thought-out movie. Personally, there are a myriad of different ways in which I would effectively incorporate progressive intensification in my screenplays.

However, certain tactics would depend on the genre/ theme of the screenplay. In my view, suspense and progressive intensification do really well together, where I would, for instance, choose to disclose the real criminal/ antagonist later on in the course of the movie. Meanwhile, in the course of the screenplay, the audience is nervously guessing who among the characters could be the criminal. There is also the trick of revealing the existence of a hidden more powerful and cunning antagonist in the conflict later on in the screenplay while the reader/ audience had assumed the demise of the real visible villains of the story.

Flash-backs and flash-forwards can also be conveniently positioned within the play to avoid lowering the increasing tempo of the events as they unfold. Works Cited Training Day. Perf. Denzel Washington & Ethan Hawke. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2001. DVD.