I liked this movie. Denzel Washington definitely earned his award...his performance was gritty and unrelenting. I liked the fact that Alonzo was setting up the rookie right from the start (with the puffing).

Now I did miss a few scenes...Why did Alonzo need the million dollars? I know he killed a Russian in Las Vegas who was important, but why would he need that money by midnight?

I think Denzel was having the time of his life playing the bad cop. He really sunk his teeth into this role.
Mike, if you have HBO, they are running this pic this month. Check it out again; all you questions will be answered.

Denzel was really frightening in this role. His Alonzo scared the bejeezus outta me.

Good flick, but I couldn't understand why Washington's character didn't spend the day attending to this problem, as it was life and death for him. Why tote Ethan Hawke's character around?

Hawke's character happens to recover the wallet of the cousin/niece of one of his "killers". In LA. Quite a lucky coincidence.

No police officer would ever surrender his weapon to a stranger, much less to 3 nutcases like Hawke did. And, after receiving the weapon unloaded, why didn't Hawke pull his spare magazine and reload the weapon? Don't tell me he was only carrying 1 mag on him that day.

Alonzo as setting up Ethan Hawke to take the fall for him if anything went wrong, that's why he was toting him around.

At the end, Alonzo flees his apartment to go up onto the roof, when Hawke follows him. Why wasn't Alonzo waiting on top of the roof to shoot Ethan Hawke as soon as he crawled over? It was a perfect opportunity, and Hawke put himself in an extremely vulnerable position climbing over the top.

Also, at the end, why didn't any of the gangsters just kill Alonzo? Why did they really expect to happen if they did?