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This Is What An Oscar Winning Villain Looks Like
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Mar 31, 2025
Denzel Washington has been a household name for decades. Starring in hit movies like Man on Fire, Inside Man, American Gangster, and Remember the Titans. But his leading role as Alonso Harris in Training Day was by far his most captivating. Earning him his first Oscar for Best Actor, and cementing him as a powerhouse in Hollywood. Training Day will forever go down as one of his best performances in his career.
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I'm the police! I run s*** here! You just live here
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King Kong ain't got s*** on me! Every story has a villain. They're essential to the enthralling narrative
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Their archetype dates back to the beginning of humanity. And yet, some villains are so captivating, they demand to be center stage in our cultural memory
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They live on well past their expected moment in the spotlight. Alonzo Harris' bravado, unique moral code, and imposing physical presence
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ensured that he would become iconic. I walk a higher path, son
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I can give you the keys to all the doors. Training Day is a hard-hitting crime thriller
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that stars Denzel Washington as a corrupt cop Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as rookie officer Jake Hoyt
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The film follows these two narcotics officers over a 24-hour period in the gang-laden areas
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of Westlake MacArthur Park, Echo Park, and South Central Los Angeles. Written by David Ayer, known for gritty crime thrillers
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like End of Watch, Sabotage, and Street Kings. Training Day is a murky exploration of the corruption and decay within the LAPD's crash program
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At the time of filming, the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums program was not widely
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known by the broader public. However, in 1997, in what is now referred to as the Rampart Scandal, over $120 million
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in settlements and 140 civil lawsuits were brought against the program thanks to statements
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made by Officer Rafael Perez, detailing the unprovoked shootings, beatings, and planting of
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evidence. Ayer was taken by this idea of corruption exposed in broad daylight. He was surrounded by
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gangs and police violence as a young man, but rarely saw justice be served. He began to think
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in a good faith situation, what would make someone reach these extreme measures in their quest for
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justice? Within that thinking, he developed the idea of Alonzo Harris, arguably one of the most
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reprehensible yet captivating characters put on screen in the last two decades
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Do the ends justify the means is a question that has haunted people in positions of power
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for generations, and Ayer found that this age-old thought exercise was exactly the fulcrum by which
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to test his character Ayer also built the story in a way that was distinctly different to what was being produced in 2001 as opposed to making Alonzo out to be a straightforward villain acting in opposition to our main characters he a mentor for a young and hungry would detective
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He's an untrustworthy narrator, a dark threshold guardian. This unusual positioning within the story just goes to increase that intrigue and unexpectedness
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in the story overall. In his world, it's all one shade of gray. Whatever it takes to get the job done is permissible, said Ayer about Alonzo Harris' worldview
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That was the core of Harris' motivation, a cop who viewed himself as the ultimate hero
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who was willing to do the ultimate evil to bring forth the just results
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What? I said you protect the sheep by killing the motherf***ing wolves
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No, you didn't hear me. In purely simple terms, Alonzo Harris is the villain, who says he's the hero
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but deep down knows he's the villain. And Denzel's performance beautifully communicates these contradictions
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His subtle, quiet moments and his bombastic, explosive unpredictability are the keys to making this character completely convincing
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These twisting and turning motivations allow the character and the performer to subvert audience expectations
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Alonzo Harris is played by one of the most famous and clean cut leading men of a generation
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Denzel Washington. And yet in this film, Denzel's offscreen persona works in favor of the character
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We want to like him, even though he's obviously a disturbed person from the start
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When we meet Harris in the film, as Jake Hoyt joins him on a ride along, we think of Denzel as a good man
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The movie is telling us how unstable Harris is, but we're predisposed to believe him as an honorable guy through the underworld
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And then, when Alonzo Harris proves to be unpredictable, corrupt, and jealous, it's shocking
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It's not what you know. It's what you can prove. It's very bold of Denzel to take this role, said producer Jeffrey Silver
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It is not his usual clearly heroic role. He usually plays someone the audience has a lot of empathy towards
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This is a movie that changes that empathy. The crux of the story, and indeed Alonzo's character arc
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revolves around a question of how far you should go to protect the innocent
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Training Day is about someone with a God complex who views themselves as Judge, Jerry, and Executioner
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It can't be like this. It is this way, man. I'm sorry I exposed you to it, but it is
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It's ugly, but it's necessary. Alonzo notions of might makes right are ideas that are linked directly to the axiom power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely We see the brutal nature of Los Angeles as the film unfolds We see Alonzo Harris
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being right about the way he chooses to interact with people in certain situations. However
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we also see that he's bent the rules a few too many times and he's fully lost his grip on what
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is just and morally right. And that's why it's only a matter of time until karmic justice catches
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up with him. All of these ideas dovetail into the scene in the middle of the movie where Harris
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shows the audience just how committed he is to his goals and how they might have corrupted him
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This scene starts as a seemingly standard educational moment, with Harris showing him
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the quality of the narcotics, pointing out inconsistencies, and teaching him how to spot
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it going forward. It quickly evolves into something else, though. To be truly effective
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a good narcotics agent must know and love narcotics. Denzel's typical leading man persona
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causes the audience to push and pull against everything that's happening in this scene
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Harris offers Hoyt the weed and then ratchets things into high gear
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when he demands that he smoke the weed. If I was a dealer, you'd be dead by now, mother f***
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He turns s*** down on the street and the chief brings your wife a crisply folded flag
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The f*** is wrong with you? Harris shows that this was a test, that he's playing mind games with Hoyt
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in order to see if he could actually handle what it's like to be an officer out in the wild
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This thought exercise, while technically theoretical, is also still very dangerous. Alonzo Harris has a gun to Hoyt's head
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Harris tells Hoyt to get out of the car and go back to the valley. He doesn't think he's capable of being a cop in the inner city of Los Angeles
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Consumed by the desire to make detective, Hoyt lets the moment get the best of him and says
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Give me that thing. I'll smoke it, man. Give it to me
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Only here's where the truly terrifying side of Alonzo Harris comes out. Hoyt quickly realizes that what he smoked wasn't just your average recreational green
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It was laced with PCP. Harris reacts to Hoyt's bewilderment with a distant sense of superiority
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He's smug about his own ability to pull one over on his new rookie partner. He takes a perverse enjoyment out of what's happening to Hoyt
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He frames his reaction to Hoyt as though he's helping him get prepared for the grimy realities of the street
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but we all know he just getting off on the sense of power he wielding And Denzel performs this layered scene amazingly well If he leaned into the operatic nature of it too much it would come across as cartoony If he underplayed it wouldn be believable
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But he strikes the right balance of intimidating, coiled, and perfectly calculating
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It's a perfect marriage of character and performer. The bravado and pure ego of Alonzo Harris
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is on display even to the final moments of the character's life. He's looking death in the face and refusing to admit defeat
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He's saying the same overly boisterous thing he's been saying and doing for the whole film
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but there's a distinct air of desperation and futility to it now. The fact that the character knows he's going to die
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and chooses not to admit defeat is the moment that he transforms from an enrapturing character
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into one of the most memorable characters of the last 20 years
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In that moment, you know that nothing is going to stop him. Literally nothing will change his ways
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He's too far gone. He's not redeemable. And furthermore, he relishes in his own corruption
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because he doesn't view it as corruption. He views it as the right thing to do
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Alonzo Harris is a truly terrifying character because he represents the legions of people from all walks of life
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that can be corrupted by the systems that they work within. He, as a narcotics detective, has power over a specific domain
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and anyone who enters that place is going to suffer the consequences. The fact that he's not pure evil makes the character all the more compelling
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He's a man who, at one point in time, was fueled by a righteous cause, but has lost his way
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The unpredictability of the character, the charisma, and the anger that lurks within him
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make him as captivating to watch as he is horrifying. Ultimately, this role and performance propelled Denzel Washington to his second win at the Oscars
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The film was so successful that it even spawned a TV series which ran for one season
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until the death of its co-star Bill Paxton in 2017. Currently, there are plans to make a prequel film centering
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on the young life of Alonzo Harris, to track his life through the underworld
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and to expand the world of the original film. All of this success happened due to the fact
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that this story is airtight and features a character that is as charismatic as he is filled with contradictions
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Denzel's performance and the perfectly executed narrative crescendo have transformed Alonzo Harris
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from a terrifying character to an Oscar-winning villain. Boom
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