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The Rewatchables ·

Training Day

year 2001decade 00sdirector Antoine Fuquagenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Shea Serrano
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 17:33

Diner scene (2-1 in studio) vs poker/table scene (Shea's pick makes it 2-2)

Four candidates are laid out: Denzel bullying Ethan Hawke into smoking pot that turns out to be PCP, an amazing mental chess match of challenging somebody's manhood; the nine-minute robbery of Scott Glenn, where the crew goes back to shoot him and take his money and the guy in the bulletproof vest really does get shot, which Jake refuses to join; the poker scene with the Latino gang at Smiley's house, which has no Denzel in it; and the final Denzel-versus-Hawke shootout in the house.

Their first meeting in the diner, the 'tell me a story' scene, is one host's favorite and makes it five candidates; the 'this is a newspaper' beat is recited.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 59:08

"King Kong ain't got shit on me"

Nominees recited: 'King Kong ain't got shit on me', noted as an ad lib, 'man the fuck up', 'finish that shit', 'all that jelly no toast', 'it ain't checkers' and about a hundred others; it has got to be the King Kong one.

The film

Training Day (2001)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua · Drama

122 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Denzel Washington Detective Alonzo Harris ( LAPD )
Ethan Hawke Officer Jake Hoyt (LAPD)
Scott Glenn Roger
Tom Berenger Stan Gursky ( LA County DA's Office )
Harris Yulin Detective Doug Rosselli (LAPD)
Raymond J. Barry Captain Lou Jacobs (LAPD)
Cliff Curtis Smiley
Jason Lopez Merit
Dr. Dre Paul (LAPD)
Snoop Dogg Blue
Macy Gray Sandman's wife
Eva Mendes Sara
Nick Chinlund Tim (LAPD)
Jaime P. Gomez Mark (LAPD)
Raymond Cruz Sniper
Noel Gugliemi Moreno
Kyjel N. Jolly Alonzo's son
Peter Greene Jeff (LAPD) (uncredited)
Terry Crews a gang member (uncredited)

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

29:11

Casting What-Ifs

Tobey Maguire trained for the Hawke role but Fuqua was never sold on him; Davis Guggenheim was set to direct Sam Jack...

Tobey Maguire trained for the Hawke role but Fuqua was never sold on him; Davis Guggenheim was set to direct Sam Jackson and Matt Damon; Eminem and Christian Bale turned down Jake Hoyt; Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger; Bruce Willis turned down Alonzo; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:29:11Read transcript
  • Woven through the ZipRecruiter read: casting Tobey Maguire in the Ethan Hawke role would have been disastrous; Maguire spent two months on undercover narcotics runs, lost weight and got in crazy shape, but Anton Fuqua (as transcribed) was never 100% sold; he would have crushed Smiley in the poker scene holding pocket rockets.
  • Davis Guggenheim was set to direct with Sam Jackson and Matt Damon as the stars; that movie wins no Oscar, and Jackson would have been almost a parody of Denzel, red meat and meta where Denzel feels real and cinematic, though one host would have watched it and thinks it could have worked.
  • Eminem and Christian Bale allegedly turned down Jake Hoyt; Eminem is really good in 8 Mile and very funny in Funny People, and his career would differ if he had gone Will Smith and left music, but he could not have played this role, and it is hard to imagine him punked for 90 minutes or fighting Denzel, since he is pretty skinny.
  • Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger but the studio turned it down; Bruce Willis allegedly turned down Alonzo, which had the potential to be awful; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached, with Sizemore basically making Training Day on his own, driving around L.A. with PCP.
  • Earlier, Will Smith in Training Day is imagined as just weird; nobody else could have played Alonzo, and the what-ifs are promised for later.
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44:21

Half-Assed Internet Research

Fuqua gave the poker-scene actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand the card game; 'fuck' is...

Fuqua gave the poker-scene actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand the card game; 'fuck' is used 211 times; the opening diner was also the Seven diner where Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow meet; the studio wanted to cut the three wise men scene

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:21Read transcript
  • During the card game Antoine Fuqua gave the gangster actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand what game they were playing, so he would seem more confused; the over/under on the word fuck draws guesses of 72 and 47 against an answer of 211.
  • The opening coffee shop was also used in Seven for Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow's first meeting, two scenes with a lot of dark humanity between two people; an oral history of that diner is proposed, and, in the spirit of buying the Boogie Nights house, buying the diner on 7th and putting the Ringer offices there.
  • The studio wanted to cut the three wise men out and the scene was fought for and kept, allegedly; it is one of the half scenes in the movie but thought necessary.
  • Asked whether the research covered Hawke knowing Denzel would slam the diner table, it did not, but the guess is he did not know and Denzel did it to throw him off; the King Kong line was definitely ad-libbed, and in the poker scene the rules were mixed up on Hawke and the other actors told to do weird things so he would be confused and uneasy.
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55:19

Picking Nits

The near-assault rescue and the wallet Jake carries around are flimsy; Alonzo's intent to frame Jake for Roger's murd...

The near-assault rescue and the wallet Jake carries around are flimsy; Alonzo's intent to frame Jake for Roger's murder only becomes clear after the three wise men lunch; Alonzo stays after getting $4 million; the wise men and Russians corruption plot is another movie; the Vegas killing is never shown; Denzel kept replaying the Alonzo persona like Pacino after Scent of a Woman

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:19Read transcript
  • The movie hinges on a weird near-assault scene in which Jake, on PCP, sees something, saves a girl from two crackheads and randomly picks up a wallet he then carries around until it saves his life; the premise that Alonzo is breaking in a kid he will frame for Roger's murder is flimsy and only becomes clear after the lunch with the three wise men.
  • Alonzo gets his hands on $4 million and stays rather than leaving the country; the defense that he has five kids is waved off, he loves the streets and cannot get away from them, and there are a million why-are-you-doing-that moments that only the compelling performances carry.
  • The police corruption, the three wise men and the Russians are another movie the film only dips into; it is rewatchable because at any 17-minute interval a Denzel-Hawke scene is about to start, the five most rewatchable scenes staggered roughly every 20 minutes.
  • Not seeing what happened in Vegas with Alonzo killing the Russian is a nit, since it is such a big part of the movie; one host would drop the first five minutes with Hawke and his wife and open with a Vegas prelude, then the credits.
  • A tiny bit of Scent of a Woman is in this: Denzel stumbled on a new character with King Kong and then became that guy in about seven more movies, the way Pacino became the Scent of a Woman guy over and over.
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59:55

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What is Jake's tomorrow? Did watching it make anyone want to try PCP, and how long would it take to wear off?

What is Jake's tomorrow? Did watching it make anyone want to try PCP, and how long would it take to wear off?

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:55Read transcript
  • One host has no questions beyond not knowing enough about PCP; what is Jake's tomorrow is floated as another sequel, the day after Training Day, whether he is still a cop.
  • A likely trajectory: like Edmund Exley, the Guy Pearce character in LA Confidential, a straight arrow who sees the dark side and wants to rise, Jake would try to make lieutenant very young and climb the ranks, with the wise men asking what it takes to keep him quiet.
  • Asked directly, one host has no other unanswerable questions; the closing question is whether watching this ever made anyone want to try PCP or wonder how long it takes to wear off.
  • Nobody wanted to try it, but it gave pause about laced pot, something to look out for; the possibility of accidentally smoking dust and ending up in a situation like this had not really landed before for a guy working at record stores.
  • One host recounts being in the Bahamas with his wife, wanting pot they had not brought, going downtown to a shady part of town, and his wife saying she had it and going off alone, the alpha dog in these situations, Alonzo in that moment. — Bill Simmons
  • The others call it one of the all-time great what-ifs, how Bill did not get murdered buying drugs in a foreign country, note it was good he did not bring pot to the Bahamas, and ask the statute of limitations on a crime committed 17 years ago.
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