Audiences at Kurt Russell's gritty cop drama Dark Blue are going to feel more than a twinge of deja vu.

Like Denzel Washington's Training Day, Dark Blue is the story of a rogue veteran cop and his young, inexperienced partner.

What the rookie discovers is that the seasoned cop is judge, jury and executioner.

The big difference is that in Training Day, Washington's Alonzo Harris knows what he's doing is not just wrong, but evil and all his deeds are motivated by greed.

Eldon Perry (Russell) kills people, but only because he believes he is doing society a huge favour. The people he kills are scum. They are drug dealers, rapists and murderers, who have eluded capture under legal means or, once caught, escaped doing time because of a technically.

Perry's father and grandfather were cops who prided themselves in cleaning the streets of low-lives in what amounted to western-style shootouts.

Eldon is also taking his orders from his own uncle, Jack Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), the head of L.A.'s Special Investigations Squad. Eldon honestly believes Van Meter is ordering assassinations based on the same kind of frontier-style justice.

It's only when he discovers Van Meter is taking kick-backs from crime lords to kill their opposition that Eldon realizes what a pawn he's been and how deeply he has sunk into a sink hole of corruption.

TENSE ACTION PIECES

Like Ethan Hawke's rookie cop in Training Day, Eldon's partner Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman) is in grave danger simply through association.

The difference this time is that Eldon is bent on protecting Bobby, not setting him up to be killed.

Dark Blue is far more realistic and far less sensational than Training Day. For this reason it is infinitely more disturbing because it follows a misguided cop not a maniac.

The comparisons between the two films are founded and understandable, because both were written by David Ayer who has an incredible feel for street dialogue and tense action pieces.

What's unfortunate is that Dark Blue was written and actually filmed before Training Day, but had its release delayed two years.

Dark Blue is based on a story by prolific crime writer James Elroy and adapted for the screen by Ayer, who used his work here as inspiration for Training Day.

Russell is at his very best in a performance of great depth and insight. He's

able to show glimpses of the man and the cop Eldon could and should have been.

Shelton directs with such confidence that he makes the contrived soapy ending more acceptable than it should be because we're left with the power of so many riveting earlier scenes.

(This film is rated AA)

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