Consolation Award: Many thought Denzel Washington won Best Actor to compensate many lauded but not awarded performances that preceded. Especially for a fiercecompetitor that year (and ironically both actors faced off against each other in Virtuosity). Ironically, two of the actors who bested Washington in the past (Sean Connery and Al Pacino) are widely seen as having been given Consolation Awards for their winning performances.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite his marginal role Smiley is still remembered these days maybe thanks to Cliff Curtis' chilling performance or his Noble Demon qualities.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Jake survives the day's events on his first day as a narcotics officer, with Alonzo now dead. However, he has to give a report on how his supervisor was killed, and provide evidence of his criminal actions...to the Three Wise Men, the very same corrupt high-ranking police officials who gave Alonzo carte blanche to do as he pleased.
Harsher in Hindsight: Alonzo's boast about closing cases that resulted in "15,000 man-years" of prison time. At the time of filming, there were no shortage of recent police scandals that raised doubts about how legitimate those busts were. Since then, there have been even more high-profile scandalsnote the Chicago Police under Jon Burge, Maricopa County in Arizona, etc., along with a growing list of exonerations due to police and prosecutor misconduct, that may only increase those doubts for later viewers.
In this film, Ethan Hawke portrays a cop trying to resist being corrupted by Alonzo. In Fuqua's later movie Brooklyn's Finest, Ethan Hawke portrays a cop who's as dirty as they come and even dresses similar to Alonzo, leading many commentators to note that he's basically playing a Hoyt who went to the dark side.
In this movie directed by Antoine Fuqua, Denzel Washington's character is in debt with the Russian mafia. Come 2014, Fuqua directs The Equalizer, with Washington playing the main character who fights the Russian mafia!
It Was His Sled: The twist is so well-known that even people who haven't watched the film usually know that Alonzo is the Villain Protagonist.
Magnificent Bastard: The gangster known only as "Smiley" is a ruthless, but cheerful and friendly man who disdains the crooked Detective Alonzo Harris for respecting no code nor creed. Accepting money to kill the heroic cop Jake Hoyt, Smiley lures Jake into a false sense of security to disarm him. Learning that Jake saved his cousin Lettie earlier that day, Smiley decides to spare him before turning him loose to deal with Alonzo.
"KING KONG AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME!" Became even more memetic prior to the release of Godzilla vs. Kong with the line being attributed to Godzilla.
The whole speech has become memeworthy to the point of it being overdubbed in some the most bizarre and inappropriate of places.
Basically every impersonation of Denzel Washington done, from comedians to TV shows, has been based off of his performance in Training Day.
Moral Event Horizon: Alonzo himself crosses this when he kills Roger, just so that he can take the money that the latter has. And if that wasn't enough, he also leaves Jake to be killed by Smiley and his gang.
Terry Crews plays an Uncredited Role as a background gangster. He was originally doing security for the movie, but Antoine Fuqua invited him in front of the camera and later kept asking him back.
Raymond Cruz is Sniper. While Cruz had a number of small to medium size roles in various projects before this (perhaps most notably playing a soldier who is recruited to be part of a secret and illegal mission in Clear and Present Danger), he wouldn't gain widespread mainstream notice until he played Tuco in Breaking Bad almost a decade after this film.
"Apocalypse Now": Enrique Rios is a swaggering gang boss who has taken over the local crime scene following the disappearance of his former boss Menjivar. Immediately hanging the multiple other lieutenants and slaughtering their families down to the children to secure his power, Rios makes the city more violent than ever before with his reign. After initiating a streetwise shootout to kill the returning Menjivar, killing multiple cops and civilians in the process, Rios tries to wipe out Frank's entire unit to cement his rule.
Alexi Koslov is a ruthless human trafficker from Russia who takes girls and places them into sex slavery en masse. Women are kidnapped and taken into the country where they are forced to work as abused prostitutes until death. Koslov is only too willing to kill any woman who proves an issue, with the heroes starting by locating a new transport of victims. One escaped victim is brought to Koslov, with him intending to skin her alive as punishment.
The crime boss known only as "Brokenclaw" was a sadistic slaver. Capturing the 7-year-old Rebecca Lee, Brokenclaw delighted in tormenting her—showing possible licentious intent of his own—while intent on selling Rebecca on the Black Market for sex work and organ removal.
"Faultlines": ATF Agent Gerald Lynch is secretly an Arms Dealer who murders gangsters to sell their weapons across America. With a massive network, Lynch is even responsible for the deaths of many police officers, including Kyle's former partner when he supplied the cartel boss Rios. When Kyle's squad rescues his proxy he set up to die to tie up loose ends, Lynch threatens to dismember two captive officers and later tries to murder them all to continue his crimes uninterrupted.
Detective Frank Rourke is a loose cannon of a cop dead set on avenging the killing of his best friend Detective William "Billy" Craig. Happy to bend the law to take down crooks, Frank notably allies with crime boss Menjivar to thwart a monstrous rival, then sets up the more noble Menjivar up to take control of all the city's crime in a more peaceful way. Frank will further manipulate or even threaten suspects with death to secure confessions, even impersonating a lawyer to trick one into confessing. Frank works with Billy's son Kyle to begin closing in on the former's murder, meanwhile coercing a corrupt councilman to gain a high profile informant to probe into his boss Joy Lockhart. Also deflecting Lockhart's investigation back on to her by playing Kyle, Frank discovers Lockhart's innocence and joins forces with her to take down Billy's killer. Setting up a bank robbery as a diversion to steal the evidence of "Project Leviathan", Frank resists the effects of a truth serum under interrogation and turns his captors on each other before shooting his way out of the cartel base to murder a ranking member of Leviathan and preparing to unmask the conspiracy.
Detective Rebecca Lee was once a child nearly sold to a horrific fate by a vicious child trafficker until she was saved by Frank. Devoted to her father-figure, Rebecca assists him as he bends the law for the greater good, even threatening to kill new recruit Kyle if she deems him a threat. An expert hacker, Rebecca gets Frank access to top secret information for his cases and even threatens to feed a Yakuza member to a shark with a fellow Detective unless he gives up information on his boss. Impersonating Lockhart to break a crook out of prison under Frank's orders, Rebecca's devotion to him even overcomes her anger at his lie in the final episodes, aiding her mentor in a shootout against the cartel and saving him to return him back to Los Angeles so he may confront and execute Billy's killer.
Detective Tommy Campbell is a former surfer and adrenaline junkie who, after surviving a great white shark attack, dedicated himself to a higher purpose and joined law enforcement. Serving as one of the right-hands to Frank, Tommy regularly serves an invaluable role in Frank's various schemes, using his gunplay expertise and skilled deduction abilities to ensure Frank claims victory after victory. Able to piece together the true victim of a seemingly random drive-by shooting as fast as he can spot a merciless killer in a crowd of civilians, Tommy faces even capture with stoic dignity and uses code words communicated to Frank to scheme an escape. Tommy is part of the coalition that works to save Frank from the vengeful cartel in the finale, and continues to serve at Frank's side in further endeavors.
"Tehrangeles" & "Elegy: Part 2": Lina Farzan is the former head of Muammar Gaddafi's Amazonian Guard. After the fall of the Libyan regime, Lina works as a mercenary with her "sisters", hired to kidnap the daughter of a crooked businessman owing her employer money. Killing her subordinates for overstepping their role in negotiations, Lina manages to outdo her boss when Frank sells her out to be killed, murdering the man with Frank's gun to prevent him from tracking her. Forming a begrudging respect for Frank, Lina returns to help him rob a cartel bank, even doubling back when Frank is caught to aid him in a shootout.
"Trigger Time" & "Elegy Part 2": Artemis is a dangerous assassin who uses a crossbow and prides herself on rarely missing. Having killed over a dozen men, she targets and nearly executes Kyle and Frank unnoticed by using an ice cream truck as cover. When she shifts targets, Artemis uses the duo to her advantage by having them draw out her true bounty so she can kill him and slip away. Meeting up with Frank some time later, Artemis teams with him to pull off a bank heist, then helps uses her skills to help save Frank when he is temporarily captured by the cartel.
"Blurred Lines": Henry Hollister is a charming robber alongside his beloved son and Getaway Driver Bobby. Hitting a jewelry store to steal chips to enter a high stakes criminal poker game, Henry is forced to kill a security guard when their idiot partner tries to rape a hostage and the guard draws. Nearly killing his treacherous partner later, Henry hits the poker game to successfully rob it before being confronted by Frank and agrees to give himself up when promised security for Bobby. Fatally stabbed while talking with Frank by the vengeful poker host, Henry dies with Frank, who restates his promise to give Bobby a good life.
The Woobie: Both Frank and Kyle, due to Billy's death, leaving the former without his best friend and moral compass and the latter a little boy without a father.
