Metro (1997)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to Metro (1997)Plot In A Paragraph: Scott Roper a hostage negotiator for the San Francisco Police Department.Murphy gives a solid performance as Roper, I expected motor mouth, fast talking Murphy here, and I didn't get him. What I did get was a straight action performance. And I liked it. His hair was silly, but I liked his performance.It's a formula action piece (from the writer of Tango & Cash) it hits most of the action movie steps.Step 1: Action movies always start in the middle of a crisis, establish the hero, and then move into the story. Usually the early crisis is followed by a quiet domestic scene: Roper negotiates with a bank robber and then meets his former girlfriend. Step 2: Hero gets a new partner: Roper gets a new partner named McCall (Rapaport) Step 3: After a friend is killed by the bad guy. The Hero vows revenge despite his Chief not allowing him on the case: A colleague of Roper's is killed by the movie's diamond thief, Roper vows revenge. Of course the chief wont give him the case as it's too personal. Roper continues to chase the guy anyway. At least we were spared the Chief telling him to hand in his badge and gun. Step 4: A car chase causing untold damage to civilian cars: A streetcar speeds downhill out of control, crashing into dozens of cars, as Roper and McCall chase it. Step 5. Hero's wife/girlfriend will be kidnapped and threatened with death unless the hero does what the villain wants: Ropers ex, who we saw at the beginning, has her life put in jeopardy!' Step 6. Hero and new partner (he didn't want) save the day. If the new partner lives that long: Check!! And I enjoyed the hell out of it. I seriously enjoyed myself watching this. This will be one of Murphy's movies that I will keep in my collection. Art Evans (Die Hard 2) pops up in a small but recognisable role. Surprised we never saw more of him in the 90's. The action scenes are cleverly directed and Eddie Murphy is back on his game again, Rapaport is always good and Wincott is a smart, creepy killer. Great entertainment for me.Metro grossed $32 million at the domestic box office (failing to bring back its $55 million budget.) to end the year the 65th highest grossing movie of 1997. Such a shame, as it deserved more recognition.

Eddie Murphy does well as Scott Roper. Even though it's a serious role he does have his moments of hilarity. The only flaw of this movie is Michael Wincott. It's not like he can't be a great villain (remember him in The Crow?) but he looks agitated as if he didn't want to be there and you can see it in his face. Other than that the action scenes are pretty good and Murphy's character has chemistry with Carmen Ejogo's character(Veronica) as well as Rapaport's character.The film suffers from the odd cliché and the love interest story which is everywhere in films like this is a tad over the top but when it comes to the action and the chases and the classic formula stuff then this film doesn't have to hide in the shadows from the classics,all in all ,metro is a solid film that wont force you to burn your die hard films or anything like that but retains its interest levels for the most part.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

This is a "Die Hard" movie with Eddie Murphy in the role of Bruce Willis. That sounds like a joke and that's the problem. Is it an action movie? Comedy? Comedy about an action movie? It keeps veering from one to another like one of the cars in the car chases. Eddie Murphy is a lot of things but no Bruce Willis. And the movie is always on the brink of being a parody rather than a straight action movie. There are screaming, helpless females (this is a 90's movie...those types of women aren't seen in movies these days), car chases & crashes, only very few intentional laughs. It's an anachronism but not a bad way to pass the time. It's Die Hard with a Black man. And it's A' ight...

* Brief Spoiler *It's a breath of fresh air when an action movie these days simply resorts to the typical clichés and doesn't try to impress the viewer too much. Twenty years ago this would have been bad. Now, with each and every movie trying to surpass the last entry into the genre and, for the most part, ending up as an overblown bore, the standard action flicks are wanted more than anything."Metro" (1997) is just that. It's got some of the oldest tricks in the books while adding lots of neat stunts and action pieces. Towards the end, the female love interest of the hero is tied to a metal mechanism that will slice the girl's head off if the red safety button is not pressed. The villain lets go, the hero presses the button as quickly as he can, and moments later the villain returns with a sports car, driving right towards the hero. If he lets go of the button, the girl's head comes off. If he doesn't move, though, the villain will run him over with the car and the girl will die anyway. What's he do?It's the classic action ideas such as this that help the movie. It reminded me of those old silent movies where the dastardly villain would tie a helpless girl to a railroad track, then climb into his stolen steam train and surge down the track towards her. But "Metro" also leaves room for car chases and shoot-outs - in one scene, a San Francisco trolley is hijacked by the bad guy, and the hero pulls up alongside the trolley in a Cadillac, jumps aboard, fights the villain, ends up pushing the full speed lever, and ramming the trolley into cars and right off of its line. It proceeds to scrape along the sloping road, off its tracks, scraping metal, ramming into everything in its path.It reminded me of the car chase in "The Rock," another good action movie with a visibly larger budget but the same fun quotient as "Metro," which is "Beverly Hills Cop" meets "The Negotiator," for the most part.Action movies always have setups that pay nothing to the movie other than a character introduction. "Metro" has a great one. We are introduced to the hero, Roper (Eddie Murphy), who is *not* the film critic on Ebert & Roeper, the latter of whom I could not get out of my head every time the name Roper was said on-screen.Roper is a hostage negotiator. He talks down the bad guys from what they're doing, and when things get really bad he has to take drastic action - such as shooting the bad guy in cold blood. Roper does this in the beginning after a funny and original setup scene, in which he walks into a building with a bag of donuts. The hostage taker doesn't believe they're just donuts. "Open the bag!" he says. His hostage takes the bag, opens it, and shows him donuts. "They're just donuts!" he says.In another type of action movie, perhaps Roper would have concealed a gun in the donut bag. Not in "Metro," which pays its respects to the other action movies such as "Beverly Hills Cop" that helped make Eddie Murphy what he is today. I read a short review on "Metro" that said Roper, Eddie Murphy's character, is another loud-mouthed, unlikable character of the sort that Eddie spoofed with Buddy Love in "The Nutty Professor." I beg to differ. Sure, he's loud-mouthed, but what Eddie Murphy character isn't? He's much more likable than some Murphy characters I can think of off-hand.I could go into the plot of "Metro," but I'm not sure it really matters. For the most part, I've got to say it's routine but it has its little twists and surprising moments along the way. Roper is training a new kid to take his place some day. The kid is played by Michael Rapaport, who succeeds in making his character smart and equally likable. I knew what was going to happen to him. As soon as I saw him I said, "At the end he'll get shot but he'll survive." Well, it happens. But for what it's worth, "Metro" is a lot better than I thought it would be, with some great action sequences, sly humor, likable characters, and plentiful nods towards the standard action films out there, some (such as the decapitating machine) dating back to the adventure films of the silent era."Metro" is, in its entirety, a fun movie.