Ryan Scott of MovieWeb isn’t able to give us a lot about this since there’s no real information on a Training Day prequel as of yet, but there are a few things to consider since it does sound as though people are hoping that Denzel Washington‘s son John will get the part. The only thing about this is that there’s no telling whether or not he really wants it since he’s been pretty busy making his own reputation as of late. From Ballers to Tenet and with BlacKkKlansman in the middle he’s been doing his own thing in a big way so it’s not even guaranteed that this would happen. Someone would need to take over the role of Alonzo Harris, the sadistic cop that was so great in this movie, but it would need to be someone that had at least a passing resemblance to Denzel and at a good portion of his talent. If you’ll remember, as Nick Reilly of NME reminds us, this role won Denzel an Oscar, so it’s safe to say that it needs to be scouted out carefully and given the kind of respect it deserves. It’s kind of funny that this movie wasn’t thought of all that much until recently when a TV series was made of it, but back when it was released it was hyped for a short time and then left to stand on its own.
But there are plenty of questions to be answered from the movie since there are contacts that Alonzo had that need some back story, from his young marijuana-dealing informant to the man in the wheelchair played by Snoop Dogg and to the four detectives that were under his command, one of whom was played by Dr. Dre. There’s also the story of Roger, who was reportedly Alonzo’s first big deal as a detective it sounds like, and was one of those that Alonzo depended heavily upon. Then there are the wise men that he and Jake meet up with in the restaurant, as some folks might want to know just what’s going on with them and why or how they became so important. See? There’s questions everywhere that need to be answered, and a prequel could go a long way to accomplishing this since it’s going to take place a good ten years before the original. It might even go into Smiley and his crew and show just how Alonzo came to deal with them. Maybe we can even see how Alonzo gained such a grip on his neighborhood that they came to fear and possibly respect him for a while. One has to remember that not everyone hated Alonzo, as he did try to do some good in a very lopsided way.
The problem with this in the movies is that the cops who straddle the line are bad enough since they can learn how to bend the law to serve their purpose but might never actively break it out of some sense of duty or principle. Alonzo strode boldly over that line and then back again as though it was a mere threshold, meaning that he’d break the law without hesitating if it served his purpose. It’s amusing to think of the moment that was mentioned between Alonzo and Roger, when Roger stated that Alonzo had once been like Jake, full of idealism and ready to take on the world with his sense of justice and purpose. That of course is something that gets tested quite a bit in the movie since Jake has to take a good long look at the dark side of the law and what acts are deemed as necessary or allowable by those that will gladly turn their heads the other way just long enough to let people do what they need to, provided that they’re being paid of course. In a big way this movie almost seems like it’s mirroring the real world in a few ways, but it definitely pushes the envelope in a big way since in an era where social media is the great equalizer and every other person on the street has a phone that can record one event or another as it goes down, a lot of the stuff in this movie simply wouldn’t be able to happen any longer. But in the era in which it was set, it was still an ‘anything goes’ moment on the streets more often than not since witnesses are typically scarce when there’s no solid proof to be had. Seeing as how it was still the early 2000s when this movie came out, even the cameras of that era, for those that had them, weren’t entirely reliable.
A prequel could be just what’s needed to answer a slew of questions about this movie, though hopefully it will be treated in a manner that can make it happen and be respectful to the original.
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