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San Francisco police inspector Eddie Murphy (as Scott Roper) is a brilliant hostage negotiator, which he proves in the opening minutes. His police captain won't assign Mr. Murphy a decent automobile for chase scenes, but he does get closely cropped blond sharpshooter Michael Rapaport (as Kevin McCall) to train. Murphy gives Mr. McCall a test in lateral thinking. Being the star, Murphy gets to win kissing time with sexy reporter Carmen Ejogo (as Veronica "Ronnie" Tate)...With his foul mouth and incidental gambling, Murphy is oddly unappealing as his character; however, he is likable in our minds due to his classic "Beverly Hills Cop" portrayal. Almost stealing the film is sophisticated villain Michael Wincott (as Michael Korda). A suave and deadly opponent, he is fun to watch. Scenes with Mr. Wincott seem to lift his co-stars and director above the ordinary. And, Thomas Carter and his crew give us some suspenseful action sequences.Metro (1/17/97) Thomas Carter ~ Eddie Murphy, Michael Wincott, Michael Rapaport, Carmen Ejogo
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews
Eddie Murphy as a foul-mouthed, loud-mouthed action lead? I'm in. True, the man has done little worth one's time past the 80's, but he's fun to watch with only a few exceptions. The plot and writing in general is cliché-ridden... the best way to enjoy the film is really to avoid thinking about it, and just going with it. The action scenes are fairly well-done, and the cinematography is decent enough. Whether or not you enjoy the frequent jokes appearing early on regarding one particular characters identity is difficult to say... personally, I found them to be somewhat cute. The humor in general is fair. The dialog is okay, but not terribly memorable. The plot progression is good enough. The action isn't breaking any new ground, but it manages to be exciting and intense, and fairly well-edited, as well. The finale is quite good, very good tension. The acting is good... Rapaport and Murphy work well together, and Wincott makes a good villain(as Alien: Resurrection will tell you, he makes an awesome bad guy, criminal type). The romantic interest of Murphy works well... they've got good on-screen chemistry, and their scenes together are credible. In conclusion; sure, we've seen all this before... but it's still good for a fun two hours. I recommend this to big fans of action films and/or Eddie Murphy. 6/10
MovieAddict2016
* 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.
