Metro (1997)

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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.

Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) is the best hostage negotiator in the San Francisco Police Department. After rescuing hostages in a bank, he's given new partner Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport) to train to take over. His recently broken up girlfriend Veronica Tate (Carmen Ejogo) is a newspaper reporter. His best friend Lieutenant Sam Baffert is investigating jewel thief Michael Korda (Michael Wincott) and is killed by him. Scott wants revenge but Captain Frank Solis is keeping him out of the investigation.Eddie Murphy is playing a loud-mouth police detective except he's not wisecracking funny like Axel Foley. He seems to have lost some of his comedic luster of his earlier work. Also Eddie is trying to go darker in this one. Michael Rapaport is basically playing the same kind of character but they don't have the best chemistry. The problem is that the script lacks intensity or sharpness. Eddie doesn't have quite the personality for this type of police drama either. The movie does have an extended car chase through the hills of SF which has some fun carnage.

Scott Roper is a wise cracking hostage negotiator, he is however exceptionally good at his job. After bringing down a particularly nasty bank robber called Michael Korda, he sets about winning his old girlfriend back whilst breaking in a new partner, Kevin McCall. When Korda escapes from prison there is only one thing on his mind, revenge, can Roper outwit Korda once again? And if so, at what cost?There has always seemed to me to be something of a negative bias towards post 1980s Eddie Murphy (Roper) films, it appears that no matter what, nothing that comes close to his best 80s efforts will ever be deemed worthy. Now I'm not saying that Metro is a world beater, or even close to Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places, but it's an accomplished thriller with classy bits of Murphy humour thrown in. It also boasts splendid support from Michael Rapaport as Roper's intelligent partner McCall, both men playing off each other to good effect, while Michael Wincott with his gravel voice used to full effect, is impressively devilish as the bad guy of the piece. Let down by a weak female lead in Carmen Ejogo, and certainly the familiarity of the genre loses the film any real sense of impending dread, but for a quick fix of nonsense entertainment on a blustery cold night, it's a more than OK viewing. 6/10

Metro appears to be a low-budget action affair, which whilst it has nothing new to offer, shows us a different side to Eddie Murphy as an actor that we hadn't seen before in his previous films. People have in the past often compared this to Beverly Hills Cop 1, in terms of the fact that they are both your typical, run- of- the- mill cop movies, but the comparisons seem to come to an end when you compare that film to Metro, in terms of plot, character types and the fact that Eddie Murphy doesn't joke about as negotiator/cop Scott Roaper that often. Not like his predecessor, Axel Foley. Here, as Roaper he is much more serious and not as laid back in contrast to his most famous movie character. Metro plays out as a straight out action movie that isn't reliant on laughs, which in itself is no bad thing. One of the main problems that some of the audiences had, in regards to their expectations of Metro, was by assuming that it would be something similar on the lines of Beverly Hills Cop. It has its funny moments, but these are few and far between throughout the film, as the narrative in Metro is very much serious and the standard cop thriller we'd come to expect.Overall, Metro is not a bad effort and the action sequences are well executed. Murphy gives a surprising turn and performance as Roaper and thus it makes a change to see him in an almost completely non-comedic role, which he does well in.Not bad indeed.