Anyone with any background in narrative storytelling has certainly been told a zillion times, “your protagonist must be active, and they must drive the plot.” Well today I watched Training Day for maybe the fifth time or so and I finally realized, “no he doesn’t.” Sure, there are probably lots of movies in which the protagonist takes the back seat and watches the events unfold before them and follows the path of some other force in the story, but for the most part these films don’t deserve an ounce of critical attention and should be tossed into a trashcan. But why does Training Day work so well?
If you are unfamiliar, the story follows Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) on his first day following an undercover LAPD Narcotics Detective, Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), who has happened to find himself the “doer of unlawful things” to put it lightly, he’s dirty. For the first two Acts, Hoyt is a passenger in the story. They go where Alonzo wants to go, Alonzo drives, he does what Alonzo tells him what to do. For TWO ACTS we see him react to the world around him but we don’t see anything past this task of “reaction.” Part of why this works is the brilliance of Denzel Washington as the main contagonist (maybe I’ll have to blog about how this differs from the antagonist at a later point, something which very few recognize). It also works because Hoyt is set up with a moral dilemma. Does he follow in Alonzo’s footsteps or does he stay true to himself? And we don’t know what he will choose for most of the film; he sticks his toe in the water on both sides and doesn’t take a stand until Act Three begins.
And in Act Three we enter a whirlwind where Hoyt becomes the hero he needs to be and writes the end of his story. But how can he be passive during the first 90 minutes of the film? Because it works. I’ve been thinking about the passive protagonist as it relates to something I’ve been working on lately and this film has given me the realization that if it works and you can pull it off, that’s how the story must be. Hoyt must decide the deviant from the law-abiding side, and frankly, he’s not ready to decide. One of the fascinating facets of the film is that the audience is placed in this dilemma and feels it, really understands the indecision. From the moment Alonzo points a gun in his face ordering him to take a hit of PCP to when he orders him to kill Roger, the audience can feel the awkwardness and in many ways it has an RPG type feel to it where Hoyt is a vessel for all of us to live and make decisions through for the length of the film. But he’s still only reacting to outside stimuli for the first TWO ACTS, he never ventures outside his given structure and doesn’t sway from Alonzo’s tutelage.
Should everyone write a passive protagonist? Probably not. But, can it be done? Certainly. And this goes to all those rules in whatever, prose, narrative voice, screenwriting, novel, short-story…whatever story you are trying to tell. There are rules, and you’ve got to know them. Then, when you understand them you can break them to pieces and make something brilliant like Training Day.
