It’s a pretty big plot hole. Alonzo owes the Russians $1 million. He robs Macy gray and Roger to get money. From Roger they steal $1 million, but that gets split 6 ways (7 if they include Jake). Alonzo also pays off the three wisemen with $40k and smiley an unknown amount. All together Alonzo would not have had enough money to pay the Russians.
shareThey got $4 million from Roger.
shareI assumed he had some money already and that the money they stole from Roger was skimmed, not completely split.
It's also not out of the question that he might have thought he could get away with a substantial but partial payment to the Russians. Buying time to get more money, offering to trade favors, or just plain calculating that he could outmaneuver/out-muscle the Russians with a combination of police authority and gangster muscle in LA.
I think there are larger issues about LAPD willing to allow one of their own to get clipped at all, or, if the Russians truly don't care about that they would whack Alonzo on general principals with no buyout option.
Good point, I guess he could’ve just stolen the money to fill the difference from he didn’t have on hand from his other prior criminal activity.
What I don’t understand is, how as Tom Berenger’s character put it....could Alonzo Fuck up so bad? A 13 year veteran of the LAPD...who by observing him seems to have good situational awareness and street experience....just snaps and kills a courier for the Russian mob? All because the guy was mouthing off?
Maybe it all got to his head. Too much ego.
Alonzo is the "wolf" and in LA he's used to being *the alpha wolf* among both cops and gangsters. The streets of LA are *his* turf and he can do what he wants, by virtue of his LAPD authority, his personal status and his willingness and ability to hurt or kill people.
Now imagine him in Vegas, where his killing took place. He's going to leave behind about 1% of his swagger in LA, but the rest he takes with him to Vegas. He's been drinking, he's losing a lot of money, and some connected Russian doesn't give Alonzo the respect Alonzo thinks he deserves. My guess is that for Alonzo, this isn't a situation he even stops to analyze, it's instant street justice for this guy.
The other thing to consider is a lot of these mob guys overrate the near term value of their own toughness and invulnerability -- does this Russian guy know he's fucking with a hard-case bent LAPD detective? I gotta believe that more than one mob tough guy in history (and especially in Vegas) got taken down a peg or two by underestimating the "don't give a shit" attitude and ability of random strangers.
So you could easily have a situation where Alonzo is drunk, pissed off at losing money, and some Russian guy starts making "n***er" comments about Alonzo, not knowing who Alonzo is, or even if he did, badly underestimating Alonzo's willingness and ability to kick his ass.
In actual reality, I would kind of expect this thing to be negotiated between the bent LAPD bosses and the Russian mob above Alonzo's level. LAPD says they will tax his ass and make him pay tribute and stay out of Vegas, but they aren't selling any licenses to kill LAPD officers in LA. Even bent LAPD bosses aren't going for that, and if it happens the Russians could probably expect more problems than it's worth in disrupted business and dead Russian mobsters.
This is what makes me think Alonzo was always doomed, money or not. The LAPD "commission" cut him loose, he was beyond the liability stage.
He said there’s “over 4 million in here.” Not “4 million exact.” But over 4 million. So we know that he left 3 million for evidence, but there may have been more than 4 million inside.
Also - Alonzo might have said “4 million” just so the other guys think there is 1 million to share around. Alonzo probably knows there is 4.5-5 million or so, and unknown to the other guys, he put aside a certain amount of that money for the Russians.
Lastly - You gotta figure that Alonzo had some money saved up. He was driving a really nice car. In an opening scene, Jake also talks about how detectives make a lot of money (“you should see their houses”). So Alonzo, a veteran detective, probably had about 500k stashed up already from his lifetime of working. Jacking Roger just put him over the top to reach 1 million.