Training Day (2001)

My Rating : 4/5 STARS
MovieStudio Quote >> “Street, Crime and a lot of money, Washington sports a cocky villain!”

Every day, there is a war being waged on America’s inner city streets – a war between residents, drug dealers and the people sworn to protect one from the other. This war has its casualties, none… Every day, there is a war being waged on America’s inner city streets – a war between residents, drug dealers and the people sworn to protect one from the other. This war has its casualties, none greater than L.A.P.D. Detective Sergeant Alonzo Harris (DENZEL WASHINGTON), a 13-year veteran narcotics officer whose questionable methodology blurs the line between legality and corruption. His optimism has long since been chipped away by his tour of duty in the streets, where fighting crime by the book can get you killed, and getting the job done often requires Alonzo and his colleagues to break the laws they are empowered to enforce.

Training Day

A gritty, realistic drama set in the morally ambiguous world of undercover police investigation, Training Day shadows Alonzo as he tests the resolve of idealistic rookie Jake Hoyt (ETHAN HAWKE), who has one day and one day only to prove himself to his fiercely charismatic superior. Over the next 24 hours, Jake will be pulled deeper and deeper into the ethical mire of Alonzo’s logic as both men put their lives and careers on the line to serve their conflicting notions of justice. Training Day is a blistering action drama that asks the audience to decide what is necessary, what is heroic and what crosses the line in the harrowing gray zone of fighting urban crime.

Training Day

Does law-abiding law enforcement come at the expense of justice and public safety? If so, do we demand safe streets at any cost? Or do we risk our security by insisting that those empowered to protect us do so within the boundaries of the law? At a time when police across the nation are battling a public image of rampant corruption, narcotics use, planting evidence and excess brutality while patrolling the meanest streets of America, Training Day paints a gripping and realistic portrait of the war taking place on the urban front lines – and just how high the costs of this battle can be.

Breach (2007)

My Rating : ***.5

MovieStudio Quote >> “Professionally Crafted, one great FBI Masterpiece”

Chris Cooper (ADAPTATION) gives a remarkable performance as complicated and bitter FBI agent Robert Hanssen in BREACH. Hanssen is a computer specialist who, after 25 years of service, is put under… Chris Cooper (ADAPTATION) gives a remarkable performance as complicated and bitter FBI agent Robert Hanssen in BREACH. Hanssen is a computer specialist who, after 25 years of service, is put under surveillance as a suspected sex offender. Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the ambitious young upstart they put on the job, assigning him to pose as Hanssen’s new clerk in order to win his trust and keep an eye on his every move. Eric is dismayed to be put on such low-priority detail, accustomed as he is to investigating high-profile terrorism suspects.

breach

His reluctance is multiplied as he gets to know the subject of his inquiry; Hanssen is at first harsh towards his young secretary, but as he opens up, Eric gets to know and respect him as a family man of strong Catholic faith. Soon, however, Hanssen is infiltrating Eric’s personal life and causing problems between him and his wife, Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas, HOLLYWOODLAND), and just when Eric is about to give up the case, he discovers that it is much bigger than he ever imagined. Eric finds himself in the middle of an investigation into the biggest security breach in U.S. history, forcing him to resort to dramatic and ingenious tactics in order to bring down the suspect. Director Billy Ray’s first directorial effort was the dramatization of the Stephen Glass scandal at the D.C. magazine The New Republic in SHATTERED GLASS, and here he once again turns his eye–with great success–to a true story with a complex villain. Cooper’s excellent characterization invites pity and horror in equal measure; his performance is well supported in this character-driven thriller by Laura Linney (KINSEY) as the hard-nosed agent leading the investigation, and Phillippe as the resourceful and introspective O’Neill.