Starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.
Rated M.

Detective Sergeant Alonzo (Washington) is a street-smart cop with
attitude, head of a small team of elite, decorated crime fighters.
His philosophy seems sound - to protect the sheep you have to get
the wolf and to get the wolf you have to be a wolf. Operating under
cover and mainly on the wrong side of the law, he bends and breaks
the rules to get the job done. Sometimes you have to, right? "Hell.
This is chess, man. Not checkers." But which laws are OK to
break and which laws are sacrosanct? It can get a little blurry.
And hell, one thing eventually leads to another - unless you know
how and when to say no.

Hoyt (Hawke) is a rookie beat-cop keen for some action and
ambitious for promotion. After applying for a job with Alonzo's
elite undercover unit, he must complete what amounts to a day
of on-the-job assessment and training. But this Training Day
will be one he will never forget. Assuming he survives it.

Drawn in by Alonzo's charisma and street cred, he is slowly but
surely awakened to the realities of the harsh streets and begins
to shine to his potential new boss with the old-fashioned methods.
Methods that include kickin' some serious booty instead of hauling
someone's ass down town for the courts to slap on the wrist and
promptly send home to momma. It may not be pretty.
It may not be right. But it gets the job done.

Perhaps somewhere in the grey area between good and bad is the
middle ground where most of us like to operate. After all, all those
damn rules, written by bean counters, solicitors and civil libertarians,
are just as much a hindrance to progress and achievement as the
ubiquitous committee.

I'm in two minds about this movie. On the one hand it was
technically and artistically brilliantly - highly stylized.
Denzel Washington is as brilliant a bad guy as any of his good-guy
roles. Training Day is as brutal, seedy, violent and action packed
as anyone could hope for. On the other hand - where's the hero.
Stories are supposed to have good guys and bad guys, heroes
and villains. Alonzo started out OK. Someone we could shine to too.
But as our Training Day progresses we are left feeling empty and
let down. Hawke as the supposed good guy just couldn't quite
counter the brilliance of Washington. And Washington is simply
brilliant.

Four out of Five Shamrocks

Check out the official Training Day web site