Training Day is a 2001 American crime thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer.
It stars Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt, two LAPD narcotics officers followed over a 24-hour period in the gang-ridden neighborhoods of Westlake, Echo Park, and South Central Los Angeles.
It also features Scott Glenn, Eva Mendes, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Macy Gray in supporting roles.
[1] A television series based on the film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was announced in August 2015 and premiered on February 2, 2017, on CBS.
As he waits for Alonzo, Jake reluctantly plays poker with Smiley and his fellow gang members, Sniper and Moreno.
Jake takes the stolen cash to submit as evidence against Alonzo and the neighborhood gang allows him to leave safely with earned respect.
unit was yet to be exposed when Training Day was written, Antoine Fuqua has stated that the emergence of the Rampart Scandal in the late 1990s catalyzed the completion of the film.
Denzel Washington also grew a beard in order to emulate the appearance of Rafael Pérez, an LAPD narcotics officer involved in multiple scandals.
He insisted that the scene was pivotal in establishing that at least some of Alonzo's illegal actions were sanctioned by his superiors who regarded unethical behavior as a necessary evil.
He even obtained permission to shoot in the Imperial Courts housing project, the first time L.A. street gangs had allowed a film crew to be brought into that neighborhood.
[7] Parts of the film were shot on the dead end street Palmwood Drive, where Black P. Stones gang members were seen on the rooftops.
[7] Davis Guggenheim was originally attached to direct the film, with Matt Damon as Jake Hoyt and Samuel L. Jackson as Alonzo Harris.
Tobey Maguire, Paul Walker, Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe, and Scott Speedman all auditioned for the role of Hoyt.
It peaked at 35 on the Billboard 200 and 19 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and spawned two hit singles, Nelly's "#1" and Dr. Dre and DJ Quik's "Put It on Me".
[12] However, following the September 11 attacks, the film was pushed back to October 5, 2001, replacing Collateral Damage's original release date.
The website's consensus reads: "The ending may be less than satisfying, but Denzel Washington reminds us why he's such a great actor in this taut and brutal police drama.
"[22] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
"[25] Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen gave the film a positive review, stating: "Denzel Washington ventures into the dark side as a seriously corrupt narcotics cop... and the results are electrifying.
In The Village Voice, Amy Taubin wrote that his "old-fashioned combination of decency and sexiness suggests the African American counterpart to Gregory Peck (in his To Kill a Mockingbird period), as an LAPD cop so evil he makes Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant look like even smaller potatoes than he was meant to be".
In addition to Fuqua, Bruckheimer, Beall, and Jonathan Littman will serve as executive producers for the series, which is set 15 years after the original film.
Filming for the first season had been completed in December 2016, so the run was not affected by Paxton's death on February 25, 2017, two days after the fourth episode aired.