Plot
In an unnamed city, the governor announces that, for budget reasons, one of the states' two police academies, run by Commandant Eric Lassard and Commandant Mauser, respectively, is to be closed. Mauser and his dim-witted captain, Proctor, conspire with men from Lassard's academy, the unscrupulous Chad Copeland and Kyle Blankes, to ensure it fails in exchange for career promotions. Alongside his current instructors—the glamorous lieutenant Callahan, soft-spoken Laverne Hooks, and prankster Larvell Jones—Lassard calls on his successful former cadets to serve as trainers: the laidback Carey Mahoney, the towering Moses Hightower, and gun fanatic Eugene Tackleberry.
The new recruits arrive for training, including bumbling Sergeant Fackler's wife, Violet, the meek Sweetchuck, erratic but reformed former gangleader Zed, whom used to harass Sweetchuck's business, Tackleberry's brother-in-law Bud Kirkland, and the beautiful Karen Adams, to whom Mahoney is attracted. Mauser sends Tomoko Nogata, an officer on an exchange program from Tachikawa, Tokyo, to join Lassard's recruits, because of his ethnicity and broken English.
The cadets undergo several weeks of training, during which Nogata becomes smitten with Callahan, who is impressed by his combat skills. Meanwhile, Sweetchuck, overwhelmed by the stress of sharing a room with the chaotic Zed, decides to quit. However, Tackleberry persuades him to stay, promising to protect him and train him into an effective officer. During a training exercise, the recruits' bumbling efforts fail to impress the oversight committee tasked with deciding the fate of the academies. Despite this, Bud redeems their performance by winning the inter-academy boxing challenge. Meanwhile, Mauser assigns Copeland and Blankes to sabotage the recruits by disrupting their sleep and forcing them into early field work in front of the committee. This leads to one member being briefly abducted by Zed's old gang, and Violet flipping a police car during a pursuit. Later, when Mauser arrives at a bar to mock Mahoney and his colleagues for their failures, they retaliate by applying strong tape to his eyes, which removes his eyebrows when taken off.
Lassard and Mahoney raise the cadets' morale with speechs affirming their belief that the cadets can succeed, leading to Karen reciprocating Mahoney's attraction. Later, Tomoko uses Larvell's advice to seduce Callahan. At the policepersons' ball, following insults from Proctor, Mahoney asks his old prostitute friend to trick him into stripping naked before locking him out of his hotel room. Proctor tries to flee back to the academy, but accidentally enters the Blue Oyster Bar, a gay biker establishment. Meanwhile, Mauser's incessant fawning over the committee leads Commissioner Hurst to reveal that Lassard's academy has not impressed the members. After he gloats to Lassard over his almost assured victory, Mahoney tells the attendees and the committee that Mauser has suggested ignoring the previous weeks' failures and basing the winning academy on the final day's field activities.
Copeland and Blankes manipulate the computer systems to send officers to the wrong location, but Laverne catches them and knocks them out. Meanwhile, at the governor's ball, Lassard's cadet, Hedges, alerts his fellow officers that armed thieves are assaulting the guests. Lassard chooses to abandon the evaluation to save his recruit, while Mauser dismisses the alert as a prank. Lassard's officers work together, including Zed and Sweetchuck, to subdue the dirtbag and rescue the governor, securing the future of Lassard's academy and its graduating cadets.
