Behind the Badge: A Cop's Take on Must-Watch Cop Movies

Title: Behind the Badge: A Cop's Take on Must-Watch Cop Movies

Original Publication Date: 12/20/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/LDqmp2b3zG7

Description: Former Spokane Police Captain Frank Scalise takes us on a cinematic journey in our latest episode, sharing his top picks for cop movies. Tune in as he delves into these thrilling tales and discusses the impact these films have had on law enforcement. From classics to modern gems, get ready for an inside look at the silver screen's portrayal of policing. #CopMovies #PodcastEpisode #LawEnforcementCinema

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Begin Transcript:

I'd like to welcome back Frank, now officially a made member of the Organized Crime and Punishment crew. I'd also like to spend out special thanks in this episode to another member of our crew, Joe Pascone of the Turning Tides. History podcast for providing the voiceover for the new Organized Crime and Punish promotional audio.

You'll be hearing more from Joe in the future. To find out more about Joe, Frank, and our crew, look for links in the show notes. Uh, Frank, maybe, I don't know if we've gotten into this too much, but maybe you could, uh, this might be a good time to drop if there's any plugs you want to do, uh, now that you're a made man on to some of your other projects.

The action I got going on on the side there, is that you mean I don't know if I want to tell you that I'll have to kick up a little more. Um, well, I mean, I, I think the reason that, that, that you invited me to come on the show [00:01:00] occasionally is my law enforcement background, which we talked about before, uh, 20 years of, of, of being a police officer, about half of it on the street and about half of it in leadership roles.

And then, uh, about 4 years teaching leadership in the U. S., all over the U. S. and Canada after that. And, and so that gave me a pretty wide perspective that, that I think at times can be valuable. Other times I don't know anything. But, um, in addition to that, I also write crime fiction. I write greedy crime fiction from both sides of the badge, as Frank Zaffiro.

And so, uh, I've written about 40 books, some are police procedurals, some are hard boiled, some are private detective novels. Uh, pretty much unless it's a cozy, if you like mystery, I've got it for you. Um, and people can check out frank safiro. com and learn more if they're interested. Awesome. Frank mustache.

Chris and I are today are going to tap into and lean into Frank's cop background with a show today of our [00:02:00] favorite police movies, cop movies. And these movies we really get, we get crime, we get punishment, we get drama and really everything else you want from entertainment out of these great movies. And I think we will eventually discuss the corollary of the Cop movie, the corollary to the cop movie genre, the cop television procedural, that's a different episode for a different day.

Before we dive into it, I'll share a little, uh, anecdote I had about police movies. I was sitting in a, I was at a party with a friend of mine, and he had all of his cop buddies there. And I just asked, I was like, what do you think about cop movies? And they all kind of, like, groaned, because. They didn't, they did cop stuff all day.

They didn't really want to go and watch it as entertainment. And I wonder, what did you, what do you feel about that? When you watch them, are you able to watch them and kind of separate the professional side of you and just enjoy them? Yeah, I always was. I [00:03:00] mean, I used to joke that. You know, when you're trying to get on the job and then your 1st year on the job, you would watch the TV show cops all the time when you were off duty.

And then by the time you've been on the job for about a year, you never watch it again in your life. Unless it's a training video at the academy or something that they use because it's a busman's holiday. But it's not, the same is not true with, uh, with good television shows and definitely not with good movies.

I always enjoyed a good police related movie. I mean, I got to be particular about mistakes at times, although, you know, you can overlook that if the story's good and all that. Um, but just like any profession, you pick out the things that aren't, aren't real. Uh, but I, yeah, it wasn't ruined for me at all. I, I still enjoyed good police movies.

I think I hated bad movies. That were police related more after I came on the job than I did before, but I still loved good cop movies. So we're going to start right with [00:04:00] you, Frank. What are your top cop movies? Well, I only picked two for the purposes of this discussion, just to, to keep things. From going on for six hours, uh, because we all love this topic so much.

And, and so just picking two is, I mean, picking 20 would be easier. Um, but I decided to go with, uh, the two coasts of corruption. I went with Copland, which is set in, uh, New York and New Jersey. And I went with training day, which is set in Los Angeles. So completely over on the other side of the country. So why don't you start off with which I could talk about Copland all day and eventually we'll have an even an episode that Chris and I did on Copland.

Let it rip with which one you want to go with. Well, I mean, before I get into either one, I think pointing out that both of them have some similar themes. Um. Is, is interesting to me. I mean, both of them feature corruption, both at [00:05:00] the individual and the systemic level, you know, level, um, you know, all of these cops are, are working within a broken system.

Um, and then at the same time, they also have cops within the system who are trying to play within the rules and, or bring down the bad guys. I mean, in, in Copland, you've got. Obviously, Freddy, the character played by Stallone, he's trying to do the right thing, and he idolizes all those other cops, you know, and he's trying to, to be a good cop.

And then, uh, in Training Day, you've got, uh, uh, Officer Hoyt, played by Ethan Hawke, who is trying like hell to impress. This, you know, narcotics sergeant, so he can make the team and, and take the next step in his career. Uh, but when he figures out what's actually going on, he, he rejects it and he tries to do the right thing.

So even though they explore corruption and, and as a police officer, uh, and, and having been around cops, like I said, I mean, all over the U S and Canada, it was always the same [00:06:00] thing. They hated to hear about, you know, corruption and they didn't like to see it in movies and stuff. Um, but you know, When you have some balance in it, you know, I think it makes for a much better film.

I mean we did a podcast on copland right and uh to be honest when we did record that podcast I hadn't watched in a really long time and so long to be honest with you was uh I just knew it's like oh this was like the stallone doing the serious movie type thing or doing like the role that he typically doesn't do and then When we watched it for the podcast, I watched it several times and um Yeah.

Like I was blown away by just how well done it was. And in particular his acting and then training day I find is it's weird because at the beginning of the movie, you kind of, kind of liked Denzel Washington's character to a degree. Kind of, come on. You fell in love with him. You wanted to have his children at the beginning of the movie.

And then you see [00:07:00] though, like you kind of see. Slowly, like, it's like a peeling of an onion, right? Like, which is kind of how corruption itself actually works, right? Like, it's like the surface level of it, and it's, oh, you don't, you don't think much of it. It's like, oh, it's something you can just kind of overlook, right?

Like, oh, you know, like, um, my girlfriend doesn't like folding the laundry or something like that. You know, it's not, it's not a big deal, right? But then you peel another piece and it's like, oh, okay, this is making me question a little bit, right? And then you peel another piece. And then by the time you get to it, you see, okay, Or at the end of it, just how disgustingly corrupt Denzel Washington is.

And even within like a community that pretty much functions on criminality, they're like, we just, we can't even deal with this guy anymore. That's how corrupt he was. And in a lot of ways it shows, shows like how corruption affects A, the individual, but it also affects the entire community, um, um, that it's being perpetrated on.

And then [00:08:00] Copland, I mean with Copland, I think that the, one of the themes that keeps Coming through with me is, Freddy always felt like he won the, the, not even the second place prize, he thought he won the third place prize, that he was in the minor leagues, that he could only define himself as if he was a New York City cop, because a All those other people in the, in all the other New York City cops, I mean, he was like, he didn't even exist because he wasn't on on the force.

And that, that whole thing that he could be who he was in his role. I mean, it's almost a, uh, For a police procedural movie. I don't know. It's on. You can almost can't leave that movie without a tear in your eye. Oh, for sure. For sure. For, for several characters. And the interesting thing about the character of Freddie that Stallone plays, I think you hit it right on the head.

He sees the major league as being a New York. An NYPD officer, [00:09:00] and because he did the right thing, he saved a woman's life, you know, at jumping into the water and rescuing her and had his, his eardrum busted permanently as a result. And now he can't be an NYPD police officer. Uh, you know, he sees that. You know, as the pinnacle and he's been, yeah, he's in the minors.

He's a double a player at best in his mind. And they prey on that. These, these, these few officers who are corrupt. I mean, I'm not going to tell you, oh, it's just NYPD. Hell no. Of course it's not. But these officers are corrupt in this movie. And, and, you know, uh, Harvey Keitel and, you know, and all of them, he's kind of the ring later.

They prey on his, Psychosis, they prey on the psychology that he's going through and give him what he wants, even though it's, you know, only a shadow of what he wants. And I think that that kind of, uh, manipulative behavior. I mean, that's very mob like, isn't it guys? I mean, isn't that what you see [00:10:00] in that?

Setting as well, I think that things exactly what they were going for that movie. It was pretty it was a mob like a mafia of cops, right within their own version of America where nobody talked. And if you were going to talk to, you know, they were going to kill you, which is what happened to Ray Liotta's.

Partner, it's not made, I don't, I can't remember if it was made explicit in the movie, but it was hinted at that that's what Harvey Keitel's character did is, you know, took care of him before he talked, right? The interesting thing about Copland 2, and you mentioned Freddy's character, is, yeah, he's a small town cop, like, in a sheriff, in a small town, but In terms of fighting corruption, it really does start at that level.

It starts with just your regular everyday Joe saying, like, we're not doing this anymore. And people say, like, oh, like, you know, what's that going to do? It's just like one person, but like, one person kind of setting an example inspires other. People who do things too. And then before you know it, it, it's not just a couple of people doing [00:11:00] it.

It's a bunch of people doing it. And once it's a bunch of people talking about it, then something has to be done about it. You know, are you going to solve police corruption by doing that? No, you're not going to solve it, but you can stop. You can stop it with it. Maybe in that circumstance and. It's a never ending battle.

It sounds cliche, but you know, you know, liberty is not free. Like, it's constantly, you have to constantly fight for it. And in terms of, uh, fighting corruption in the police force or in our government agencies, you can't just, you have to constantly fight against it because otherwise you have what happens in, um, Cop land where you have this little cadre of mafia cops is basically what I would call them.

Um, running the show and doing just horrible things to like fellow cops and the community around them. Ironically, that sort of participation and vigilance and shining some light on on behavior. Uh, it's the exact same formula formula for trying to stop crime, uh, you [00:12:00] know, community involvement and people willing to testify and shining a light on it and so forth.

And it's also a never ending battle. I mean, you're never going to as a police officer. You're never going to show up at work and see the chief lock in the front door and say, what's going on? Uh, we're done. Crime's done. We're finished. Go find a new job. You know, I mean, that's never going to happen. Right?

So it's interesting that. Right. To hear you describe that and that that's what's going through my mind is yeah, that's exactly the same formula for for fighting crime. It's a persistence and and an ethical awareness and people being willing to to make a difference. Quickly, though, let's not dump and I know we neither of you were intending to, but let's not dump on small town cops at all.

I mean, the reality is, is the majority of police are on a medium to small size police department, um, in the U. S. Anyway, the majority of cops serve on a department that's medium sized or less. I don't remember what number defines that, but we're not talking about hundreds of people. [00:13:00] In that size of an agency, and there is a different form of policing that takes place.

That might be a different discussion for a different day. But when you're a county detective with backup 30 minutes out, it's a little bit different style of policing than what we saw in Copland, where when the guy's fighting on the roof, there's 12 guys coming in squad cars. You know, a minute and a half away, so just something to think about out there and the folks, it's a different sort of world, depending on where and how you end up policing to bounce off of that.

I think that that's what Copland set the dichotomy so well of that. The city is always in the background. And as far as I know, there's no place in New Jersey. That's a small Right. Right. Village essentially right across the street or right across the river from the city, but they got that so well that the small town versus the big city, even if it doesn't actually [00:14:00] exist in reality to, to draw that really stark dichotomy.

It, you know, it wouldn't have been the same if they lived three hours away in Pennsylvania, where it would really have been that way to show. This is their town. That's all that's right on the river. And you can see the city in the backdrop. I think that was one of the most clever things of the movie is it always kept it in your mind.

Yeah, it did. And he always knew that dichotomy was very starkly drawn and, and constantly reinforced. And I thought they did a pretty tremendous job of that. Um, it, it does, uh, well, I'll talk about this more when we get to, to, to training day, but it does bring up the issue of, um, how like those cops from, from New York, in addition to how Freddie saw them, they kind of saw themselves.

As elite and for being part of NYPD and a certain amount of, of entitlement came with that. And, [00:15:00] and, uh, I think some of that was bred from the corruption that they were enjoying, uh, and also, of course, like I said, for being part of the a team, essentially, um, and, and of course that's, you know, that's not a good trait, right?

That's not something that we admire. But these same guys are dealing with stuff in the city every day, uh, you know, that is horrible, right? They're in the, in the trenches up to their knees, battling through the muck and the mire of, of that job. And it's not like that every day. It's not like that all day long every day, but it's like that most days, some of the day, if that makes sense.

And, and when you experience that day after day, after day, after day. Even if you work in a decent city, it's still you're dealing with the under world of that city. Essentially, the under parts of it, people at their worst or the worst people depending. So, what do you end up wanting as as an [00:16:00] individual?

You want your family to not experience that. And 1 way that you don't experience that. Is if you don't live in the same place, and so a lot of cops live out in the suburbs, they live somewhere else. Like these cops, they lived in Garrison, New Jersey, which I assume is a made up town, or at least the was depicted fictionally, um, you know, a nice town where people can, you know, not lock their doors and all that.

And, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Um, and that's great. Everybody wants something better. Their family for their families, and I'm all for it, but it has an interesting side effect. And. Yeah. And I don't know if this really came out so much in Copland, but, but the, the danger of it was, was right there.

And that is when you don't live where you police and where you live is dramatically different than where you police, then there is a loss of. Connectivity with your community that you're policing. There's a lot loss of of understanding. There's a [00:17:00] detachment that takes place and and and that can lead to more distance.

And anytime there's distance between the police and the community that they serve. Um, it's never good. It's not necessarily, it doesn't cause corruption necessarily, but it, it does make policing more difficult. Uh, if you disconnect from the community, the community disconnects from you. And suddenly people aren't calling when things happen.

They're not testifying. They're not getting, you know, willing to, to go as far in terms of being a witness. Um, You know, programs that you might try to start to make things better, get lukewarm reception and maybe not the greatest level of involvement. Um, you know, I mean, everybody's been in a relationship where the other person checked out and you can figure out that we're not going to be friends anymore.

We're not going to date anymore pretty soon because they're already gone. Right? I mean, there's even an eagle song about it. So I would, I would hum it here, but you'd get struck on a copyright violation. So I [00:18:00] won't do it, but. Okay. You know, the community can sense that from an agency too. And so when you see these guys set up over in garrison and you see what kind of, you know, junk they have to deal with in the city, you can kind of understand their desire to do that, to have a better life.

And I get that. I totally get that. And I'm not saying they shouldn't have done that. Um, but I think it does bring a whole new set of problems with it that can be bad. It can be bad for our community. So, um, that's just one of the things I noticed that I didn't really think about. When I watched it the first 12 or 13 times when I watched it recently, uh, uh, I did it occurred to me, uh, because I was in a different place experientially.

And so those are some of the thoughts that go through my head. Um, so I don't know, does this, does this concept make sense or Sparking up a death tree, Steve. Here we are, a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like James [00:19:00] Earley's, key Battles of American History Podcast, and many other great shows.

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Uh, to me, you basically described about like, uh, communities not feeling like in a connection to the police force or the state authorities. You basically set up the scenario in which the mafia can thrive. That's exactly how it happened in New York, in places like Brownsville, where, I mean, a lot of the times we just finished, uh, we're finishing, well, releasing, finishing our series on Murder, Inc.

And a lot of the time was They didn't trust the cops, you know, they grew up in poverty. They didn't trust the government either, right? Because they lived in some of the worst conditions and, you know, the modern world at the time. In the world, you could argue too, uh, because of how cramped the spaces were and.

The lack of sanitation, they just looked at all authorities and be like, we're doing, we don't trust [00:20:00] any of them. So like, even if a cop wanted to go in there and like, try to make a difference, good luck. This is not going to happen. And then who comes in and replaces that, uh, the authority that the state and the.

the police force is supposed to have it becomes the gangs really it's like oh you don't want your shop burned down well you got to pay this tax for us right otherwise this is going to happen to your shop or this is what's going to happen to your brother oh you need a loan to get something oh come to me you know Here's the problem though.

It's like, we're going to charge you a 40%, you know, interest. And if you don't pay, if you don't even cover the, the VIG payments, uh, yeah, we're going to break your fingers and, uh, beat your wife up. But doesn't that, doesn't that come later though, Chris? I mean, doesn't it start with, Oh, that guy, Steve is messing with you.

I'll take care of it. Like that's what it starts with. And then it's like, then it, then it gets to the, probably you should just give me some money to take care of it on an ongoing basis for you. And then, you know, but it [00:21:00] almost like we, we, we talked about noble cause corruption on a different episode about how cops start doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

Basically to put bad guys in jail, the guys they know are very bad in jails. Yeah. So they don't get off on a technicality that might be the first transgression that happens, but then it progresses because it can be a slippery slope. I think the same thing's true in the mob, isn't it? I mean, I mean, even if you go back to Italy, it basically they brought order and they brought resolution to problems.

They brought safety to people initially. Um, and then, of course, yeah. It became corrupt and it became, you know, extortion and it became, you know, all the other bad things that that the mob does. So, uh, it's interesting. Basically, human nature is human nature. I think is what it comes down to. I think so much of what you said to about the sense of community.

Where if you are living in the community, like I've seen it in a slightly different way of teaching in the [00:22:00] neighborhood school where my kids went to that school, their friends went to school, and it could, even in that situation, there was some really awesome things about it. And really did it, it broke down some of those barriers of the authority and this.

And, you know, you became friends with the parents, they were your neighbors, they were your shopkeepers, your, you know, the person who did your breaks, all that, you know, everybody was leveled out the playing field in a lot of ways. But then there, it did also cause some awkwardness where you could see where some of that noble, uh, corruption could sneak in.

Oh, I can, can I really give, uh, so and so's kid a bad grade when they're, you know, my, uh, a good friend or, I mean, uh, getting Uh, cornered. Oh, can you talk about this or that? And I think with police, it would get amped up even more because it do you really want to live in a neighborhood where you could be potentially, you know, especially in maybe a higher crime neighborhood where you might have [00:23:00] to be locking up a lot of people.

I think there could be a lot of really good benefits to that. And there could be a lot of really, uh, negative outcomes. And I could see where some people want to keep a separation there. But the thing is that, you know, it's easy to think of a person as a stereotype. Oh, he's an Italian. Um, oh, he's, uh, uh, whatever an Irishman though.

She's, she's French or whatever. He's a teacher. She's a cop. Uh, you know, he, he works at a recycling plant, you know, I mean, you can, you can just decide that's a, that's the stereotype and you can, you know, really easily decide how you want to feel about that person. And, and, you know, but. When you know the person is an individual, it's a lot harder to sell yourself on anything that isn't true.

That's not, you know, that's not accurate. And so one of the things that's great about community policing or whatever iteration that they're calling it at this stage now, I've been out of the game for [00:24:00] a decade, you know, neighborhood policing, you know, whatever you want to call it, is that now people know Steve, not officer Guerra, right?

They know. Chris, not Officer Daniels, they know Frank, not Sergeant Scalise. I put myself in charge 'cause I have more experience, . Um, so it's, it, problem solving is different when, when you know somebody, even, even a little bit, even if you have the tiniest bit of commonality and, and so that's the benefit of being within the community.

So when you don't have that, you have to, as a police officer, you have to try ho hopefully you do anyway. You have to try to. Discover that commonality, uh, you know, I mean, if they've got a picture, if they've got, you know, Native American picture up on the wall, you know, and you are also, you know, maybe that's your history area, then you can, you know, broach that topic.

I mean, I'm not talking about the middle of a drag out fight, but you're there on a [00:25:00] call, right? Anything to create commonality, because then. The problem solving becomes easier. And I think, and I think in Freddie's case, that would have been all of the policing that he did. He knew everybody in that town.

Everybody knew him, but in New York, I mean, these guys live in care. So they, they're only there when they're working. They're in cars. They're not walking a beat. I don't know that. That it necessarily is quite as effective. It may. You know, I may be a little pie in the sky. We're never going to go back to officer Joe on the beat.

But boy, if we could find a way to bridge the gap between where we are and that, I think we'd be in a better place when it comes to policing and everything that surrounds it, the effectiveness of the police, police corruption or scandals when they do happen people's. Quality of life. I mean, it would just, it would be more like Garrison, New Jersey, where these guys want to live than it would be in some of the rougher places in New York.

Let's, uh, shift gears to training day. And, uh, how does [00:26:00] that fit in? It's a lot the same, I think. And that's kind of why I picked it. The biggest difference though, is so the corruption that's taking place in Copland is a reaction to the policing life and a desire for a better life. And then it, of course, it becomes about self aggrandizement and, you know, self enrichment as well, but that's where it starts.

And that's mostly what it's about, um, in training day. You know, Alonzo Harris does what he does to put bad guys in jail. That's his creed, right? That's what he does. And when Ethan Hawke calls him on it, he gets offended and he lists out judges of, you know, put, you know, have, have given out. This ungodly number of years of prison sentences on cases that he's worked and, and everything he's doing is about either putting bad guys into jail or bettering the life of the community that he's policing.

Um, even if sometimes that community is, as Chris [00:27:00] very rightfully pointed out, just beset with criminality. I mean, he's, he's crooked, but I don't know that he's a completely bad guy. I mean, 1 thing that people. Need to remember when they watch that movie is the actions. He takes during that day is actually a response to the fact that he went to Vegas and popped off his mouth and lost some money and made the Russians mad and they put out a hit on him and he was trying to buy off the hit.

And so he does a lot of corrupt things, a lot of very corrupt things. But essentially it's to save his own life is how he sees it. I'd be curious to see a different training day where maybe before he went to Las Vegas, how similar it would be. It would be very similar up to a point because his habits and his behaviors were, were, were what he did all the time.

It was clear, but his attitude was. You got to be a wolf to catch a wolf, you know, and, and that's not an uncommon attitude among a lot of [00:28:00] police. And I don't know that it's a wrong attitude entirely. One of my favorite television seasons, probably the best season of television of all time is a true detective season one, my humble.

And there's a line in there where, or one character is feeling bad about some decisions that he's made. And he, he asks the other character, the. He asks, uh, Matthew McConaughey, a character arrest goal. Do you ever think you're a bad man? And Russ tells him the people need bad men. Marty, we keep the other bad men from the door.

I mean, that's almost word for word, beat for beat. You gotta be a wolf to catch a wolf from training day. And so this corruption is. Is more based on what they're trying to accomplish. And I want to touch on that a little more deeply, but I don't want to go too far, too fast. How many times have me and you argued about the receiver?

There's a part of me that's just like, you know what? Like you go into places like Baltimore and Detroit, and it's just [00:29:00] like, you know what, you're not going to fix this problem. Like, can you, you need a sledgehammer to actually fix this problem. And it, at the end of the day, like sometimes people, it gets almost.

Well, some people willingly take the burden, but in a lot of ways it can be a burden. It's like, I have to be the sledgehammer, because who else is, who else is going to be the sledgehammer in the face of this, this There's absolutely debauchery and criminality that's going on in this community. Like I have to at least if I could stop it here, or at least it's not at least I can keep it from spreading in other places.

And Steve, you're you're you have more so like a libertarian Ben. So you're. Always terrified of, you know, the state having too much power, uh, organizations having too much power. And I mean, I get it like to a degree where I'm like, I, I see, I see the problems with that, right? I've, my opinion's always been like, well, if they start having a problem, then the people can just get rid of the people that are causing the problem.

But you, it was, I don't know, I go [00:30:00] back and forth with it all the time, where it's just like, there's a, in some ways I understand Denzel's character. It's just like, yeah, like if you're gonna fight a bunch of wolves, like you have to be the biggest, baddest wolf to be able to tame all these wolves, right?

And I think some people, I think they don't get it fully. Like I, I, you know, like, like I grew up in Toronto, so I didn't grow up in a place like Detroit or anything like that, right? But I grew up like. You know, like a lot of my friends end up becoming criminals and stuff like that, and then you're dealing with, you're around these people and you're dealing with this, and I, there's a lot of eye in the pie type solutions to these problems I find where people are like, well, if you just do this and you do this, and if the cops did this, and I'm like, like, sometimes it just, it literally takes a billy bat across the face and like arresting people, you know, like just literally removing the problem.

For the community to even have a chance, but I mean, that's probably a really controversial opinion, but that's how I feel sometimes, but I understand the, the concern of, [00:31:00] you know, police using excessive force or the state using excessive force, because in a lot of ways they, you know, it's cliche, but it's the truth, right?

In a lot of ways, they're the most powerful mafia, you know, they can print their own money. You know, they have their own army, but people, it's funny because if, if, like, if, if somebody goes zoom in down your block and then a police car goes zoom in after him and stops and writes him a ticket, you're cheering, right?

Write that mother a ticket, you know, write that Humpty Humper a ticket, right? You're all, you know, um, and that extends to some guys being a total jack wagon and a. Or something and takes a poke at somebody and shows up and mounts off to the cops and takes a swing at the cops and gets pig piled, you know, as we used to call it and, you know, ends up on the ground with, you know, about 6 knees holding him down and gets cuffed up and thrown in a car and taken to jail.

People probably cheer the. Cars, it drives away. I mean, people's sense of justice is pretty, is pretty well. I mean, unless you start [00:32:00] having philosophical discussions with them, but the, in the moment sense of justice is pretty well developed. It's pretty keen. And, and so the question that comes to me with this, with this movie training day is, is.

You know, he's engaged in corrupt behavior. That's one side of the coin. But the other side of the coin is how much of society is willing to accept that behavior in order to get the result. Like when we talked about noble cause corruption, a lot of times it goes when it, when it goes off the rails and goes really far, you've got absently T absentee leadership.

That's really not paying attention to anything except the results, you know, drugs and money on the table stats, you know. Uh, arrests community and happy about whatever. Um, the community is kind of the same way. I think about some things that the cops are getting it done. They almost don't care, you know, what, you know, it's just a bunch of criminals.

I mean, if somebody happened to get smacked upside the head. You know, when they didn't [00:33:00] deserve it, I can live with that sort of attitude. I think, I mean, and so in this movie, it just makes me think about the question. What does society want? They want justice at what cost, you know, what, and everybody's answer is different, of course, right?

Everybody's, if we pulled the three of us, we'd have three different answers. If there were 300 people on this broadcast there. Be 300 different answers where that line is at and training day does a really good job of, I think, drawing you in, you, you talked about liking Alonzo and I teach you about loving him.

I loved him. Like he's the coolest dude ever for like, it's a two hour movie and for like, um, 90 minutes. He's a God. You know, he's funny. He's charming. I mean, Denzel's a handsome man. Obviously, he's good looking guy. So very charismatic, very cinematic. Uh, and what he's doing makes sense to your basic sense of justice, doesn't it?

I mean, did he do anything that you thought was over the top? Until when, when did he do [00:34:00] something that you felt was too far? You know, probably when he faked the search warrant to steal the money from that, that woman who had the kid did the fake raid. Do you remember that part there? That was probably where most people go.

Oh, I think I'm out. I think he's a bad guy now. But prior to that. Most people were probably like, yeah, well, you know, that guy, he tried to rape that girl in the alley. So he got whacked in the grind by, you know, by, by the butt of a gun. He's lucky that he didn't go to jail or get 1 of those, you know, get, get it shot off or something.

Right? Um, and so where, where's that line and they do a really good job. I think of. Taking you down the road and seeing how far down that road. You'll go with them before you look for an exit. Yeah, you, you mentioned about like, how far would we be willing to go? Like, if somebody told me, and this is just all theoretical, right?

It's like, Hey, and your neighborhood, we can get rid of all the fentanyl. We can get rid of all the crack, get rid of all the math, right? We [00:35:00] just going to have to be allowed to do this, this and this and this. If they provided the results, I'd be like, It's not a bad deal. It's a part of me that goes like, that's not a bad deal, but what's this, this, and this, like, what, what would you have that kind of that's there's there and lies to me.

It's like, if you got the results, like, there's no fentanyl on the streets anymore. There's no. Okay. So I'm going to, uh. I'm gonna assassinate every drug dealer until all of them leave the neighborhood. Are you okay with that? That's a long, that's a long pause, Chris. I just dunno what I should say because I know, I know what my answer is, but I, I mean,

Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. I started at the wrong end of the spectrum, Steve. It should. I should have started with, I'm gonna go and t verbally her, all the drug dealers to me. I'd be like, yeah, it's perfectly fine. Shoot the drug dealers. But what if you dial it back a notch [00:36:00] and you just, the team is around the table and they say that it's, the people who are doing this are predominantly teenagers from the age of 17 to 23 and they're of a certain race, is it okay to roust every single person of that, that fits that profile?

Is that, you know, would that be acceptable? And shake them down no matter what, you know, like basically essentially profiling. I mean, in our democratic country with civil rights and I mean, we have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No, but in a place like Singapore, they don't care and they don't have drugs on the streets like we do, you know, it's just employees think they profile behavior more than anything.

So, you know, if, if those individuals with whatever age group or whatever, uh, demographic racially or, or whatever, if they're on a known drug [00:37:00] corner, making frequent contacts with, Okay. People coming and going, that's the focus, right? Not necessarily the other factors. But, but I think your point, Steve is, is.

A wonderful one, because it really clearly defines what we're talking about here. You're giving up some freedoms and not your own, by the way, somebody else's in order for everybody to have safety. And how much of that are you willing to do? And in the movie, yeah, I think that that's kind of what we have to ask ourselves.

They're trying to get drugs off the street. Well, what are you willing to do to do that? Are you, are you willing to allow a guy like Scott Glenn's character to basically operate unimpeded for years because he gives you information and he doesn't sell to kids? And he, you know, he has this code that you're okay with.

Is that acceptable? Cause you're never going to get drugs off the street, right? So why not try to control it a little bit? Yeah. Um, now I'm being rhetorical here. I'm not actually saying that's what we should do, but some people would be like, yeah, that's a necessary evil. [00:38:00] That was a smart play on their part.

Um, is that okay? I mean, there's a lot of questions that it brings up. And I just, I think it's a fantastic movie from that perspective too. And it's a never ending discussion, honestly, like I go back and forth with it all the time, like, uh, but. I, I'm not going to lie, like I kind of lean towards stuff, especially with like drug related and, um, stuff like murder and obviously murder and stuff like that.

Like really serious crimes. I mean, do what's necessary to get the stuff off the streets. You know, people, I don't know, people talk about like, uh, terms of drug use. And like a lot of times, like people, I think there's certain people that just kind of gravitate towards it, but there's also people that are just like, they're at a party and they try something and.

Yeah. They're hanging out with a couple people and they try it a couple more times and then all of a sudden they're hooked, you know, and that's if that just wasn't, and if that was difficult to get, which is unlike what goes on society now. [00:39:00] If that was actually somewhat difficult to get for the average person, a lot of those scenarios just wouldn't happen.

I think what you describe is that, for the most part, drug use, more than the physical effects of addiction, Is it's habitual and a lot of the research shows that is when people get into drugs, it's, it, it's a habit and it's their lifestyle. And it's a lot of the, the best programs that get people off of drugs.

I interviewed another author, Sam Quinones, who, uh, was really a big fan of a program in, I want to say was somewhere in Appalachia or Appalachia, uh, where he said that. They put people in prison and they had guards and psychologists who just trained people on how to operate in a society where they're not on drugs.

Well, I don't want to, uh, [00:40:00] to, uh, spend all the time on just these two movies. So, uh, before we move on, I do want to ask everybody, uh, favorite quotes from each movie, favorite lines, um, Copland, Steve. Without a doubt, it would have to be, well, uh, there's so many of them that I use, uh, in for a penny and for a pound Ray, but, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the diagonal rule following, you can follow somebody from, uh, ahead of them as much as you can from tailing them.

And then, um, and I, I'm probably, I might be stealing somebody else's is being right. Isn't a bulletproof vest. Oh, my goodness. I tell you Yoda. Does he not own that line? Oh my, you know, that's, I don't think that's the best line in Copland. That's the, that is the best line. That's a, a motto you should live by lip being right is not a bulletproof vest.

And he delivers it with such like. So emphatically and with [00:41:00] frustration too, it's like, he's trying to get somebody to understand, you know, being, you know, being right. Isn't a bulletproof vest, Freddie, you know, and he comes at him hard with it, you know, and, and that is, that is my favorite line. Um, but. I will take another one then.

Um, because Robert De Niro has a very understated but extremely important role in this movie. And, you know, I went, go to lunch, you know, and he freaks out at everything . And, and when, when Stallone comes back and tries to, uh, give him the information now, and he, he's got the sandwich and he's like, not.

Worried about it anymore. And he goes, you know, we came to you and he goes, you know, you had a chance to do something and you blew it. And just the way that De Niro delivers that line and he's waving the sandwich. It's like, it's just, it's a great, it's great. I, I really enjoyed that line. You have a favorite line for the movie, Chris.

Not so much a line, I'd say more so a scene. I think it's when, uh, Ray Liotta's character comes over to Frank's place and he's [00:42:00] laying low for a bit, and Frank realizes like, like, Ray Liotta's character's doing blow in the bathroom, like his own bathroom, and it's just kind of like a realization where Frank has such a good, like, Freddy.

It's Freddy. Sorry, yeah, sorry, yeah, sorry. Freddy has such a good moral, uh, Compass in the sense like this is wrong, but he I think it's like a revelation to him to do a degree where it's like sometimes you know what I have to work with people that might not might not necessarily be as good as me or have the same moral compass as me to achieve.

Uh, a better good, and just because somebody might be bad in this scenario, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're entirely bad, which is, you know, kind of what we find out during the movie, right? And that's pretty much real life, too, in a lot of ways. I get, I have a very strong sense of right and wrong, a moral compass.

Now, I might not be right about that all the time, but I And to me, it's, it's pretty strong. Like, I don't, uh, it doesn't fluctuate all that much, but [00:43:00] sometimes I have to catch myself where I'm judging somebody because they're doing something wrong and think to myself, I'm like, well, I gotta be able to be a little bit flexible here sometimes, you know?

And, um, I just think that seems like a perfect place. Well, Freddy has to be too, doesn't he? He, he washes it off the, the mirror. He doesn't confront him. He doesn't. Arrest him. Um, he shows that he's able to, I mean, that's corrupt. That's a little corrupt. I mean, he shows that he's not a perfect individual.

And, and I love that about. The movie, because it shows that it's not a light switch. You know, there are degrees of somebody being corrupt and in whatever profession that they're in. And Freddy is at the very light end of the spectrum, but that's still a corrupting. He also knew figs. He. Blew up his own house.

I mean, he might not have been able to prove it, but he knew it and he didn't say anything. So, you know, he, he had a little bit of corruption too, just not enough to allow somebody to get killed. You know, he wasn't going to let a murder [00:44:00] Superboy. Right. So, uh, I think that's a great scene. That's a good. I think just a part of it too is where unlike say like the other characters or they they see the corruption and it doesn't like they know that they're being corrupt and it's not affecting them where you can see that it's literally eating freddie away inside that he is participating in this yeah yeah he's conflicted with and I have no choice right and.

Um, I think that's like, that was the biggest difference to me, like, and that that scene kind of perfectly represents it. And to me, that's what separated him the most from all the other characters were like, a lot of the corruption. It wasn't eating away at it. At the other guys were Friday was, you can literally see it on his body.

I think that's why I still don't gain weight for the role. And, you know, he didn't look as jacked as he usually did because it was, I think he was physically showing. That this, that, that the corruption was literally eating away at him. And if he didn't do something about it, I mean, eventually he probably, maybe he would have killed himself.

I don't know. Well, that is a very [00:45:00] insightful view of that character in that scene. I think, I don't think a lot of people would have picked that scene as being as pivotal as, as you've pointed it out to be, but I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. I do. Before we move on to training day quotes, I did want to point out Ray Liotta's character Figgs.

He has a little bit of a redemption arc too. So you've got the cops who are outright corrupt. And you've got Freddie, who's outright not just a maybe slightly tiny bit flawed and then you got fixed. It was 1 of them, but now he's trying to get out and he's got to decide if he's going to do what's best for him, or if he's going to do the right thing.

And ultimately he backs Freddie up and he does the right thing. Um, and so that's to me, that's a redemption arc. And I think that's a, I think that sends a pretty powerful message too, but. Training day favorite favorite quote from training day. Chris, do you want to start since you had to go through it last time?

Uh, the King Kong quote. I mean, that's, that's like, that's the best line in the entire movie, right? [00:46:00] Like it's, uh, I mean, it's just so, I don't know. It's just so bad ass, you know, but it's, it's not that as the same time. Cause it's, I don't know. It's this guy's like making one last stand. And in some ways it's pretty pathetic too.

Right. Where he's just like, I run this neighborhood, I'm King Kong. And it's just like, yeah. No, you're not, you know, like your guy, you pointed out your guy, you know, made some bad bets and ran his mouth off and you've been trying to save your life this entire time. You know, you're not reall