Metro (1997)

A Hostage Negotiator teams up with a Sharpshooter to bring down a dangerous jewel thief.

Director:

Thomas Carter

Writer:

Randy Feldman

Stars:

Eddie Murphy, Michael Rapaport, Kim Miyori

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Eddie Murphy	...	Insp. Scott Roper
Kim Miyori	...	Detective Kimura
Art Evans	...	Lt. Sam Baffett
James Carpenter	...	Officer Forbes
Michael Rapaport	...	Kevin McCall
Donal Logue	...	Earl
Jeni Chua	...	Debbie, Earl's Hostage
Dick Bright	...	Bank Manager
David Michael Silverman	...	SWAT Officer Jennings
Denis Arndt	...	Capt. Frank Solis
Frank Somerville	...	Reporter
Malou Nubla	...	Reporter
Carmen Ejogo	...	Veronica 'Ronnie' Tate
Nino Degennaro	...	Repoman
Michael Wincott	...	Michael Korda

Storyline

Roper, a hostage negotiator catches a murderous bank robber after a blown heist. The bank robber escapes and immediately goes after the man who put him behind bars. The ending is played out with Roper and his partner McCall attempting to rescue Roper's kidnapped girlfriend. A major element in the plot is the relationship between Roper and his girlfriend.

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Plot Keywords:

hostage | chase | police officer | gunfight | violence | 

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Taglines:

San Francisco's top police hostage negotiator is about to get more than he ever bargained for.

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Was one of several films that Academy Award nominee James Newton Howard was attached to score in 1996 and early 1997 but had to drop due to scheduling conflicts with other films. The others include Chain Reaction (subsequently scored by Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith), Liar, Liar, Dante's Peak and The Rich Man's Wife. He did manage to write the themes for this film (scored by Steve Porcaro), Dante's Peak, Liar, Liar and The Rich Man's Wife which were scored by John Debney and John Frizzell.

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Goofs

Near the end of the film, Kevin McCall squeezes off three rounds off his sniper rifle in a quick, semi-automatic fashion. The SWAT standard issue M24 SWS is a bolt-action rifle, which requires the shooter to manually chamber each round.

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Quotes

[On watching a foreign film]
Scott Roper: My eyes still hurt from reading that movie.

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Connections

Referenced in Gen-X Cops (1999)

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Soundtracks

HIGH NOON (DO NOT FORSAKE ME)
Written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington

User Reviews

In some ways average, other ways quite good.

For the first hour of this film all I could think of was how average it was, I even had an average review written in my head for it. However, there are certain scenes, thrills and aspects - e.g. the ending predicament that are actually pretty good and will throw you.

Eddie Murphy plays a 'wisecracking' hostage negotiator, although tbh he's very much the 'serious' Eddie Murphy for most of the film. I prefer the fun Beverly Hills Cop guy, but there we go. There is a scene where he's talking about being in a thong and being seen by his mother's friends that is hilarious though. Plot-wise he basically gets on the wrong side of some nutter and his cousin and they conspire to make life hell for him and his English girlfriend. The female lead is a tad weak in this, and I must admit I've never ever heard of her (although I was 7 when this film came out - maybe she was big then) but she looked good - Carmen Ejogo she is.

Michael Rapaport is in this as well, as an intelligent sniper who is paired up with Murphy. Now I thought, judging by the cover etc, this was gonna be a buddy cop movie but Rapaport (an actor I like) is underused really. Don't get me wrong he's in the film a fair bit but his character has next to no personality. All I learnt was he's polite, sharp, from the Swat team and is a sniper. That's it. The film could have been done without his character if they wanted to save whatever fee he commanded.

Whoever plays Eddie Murphy and Carme Ejogo's dog is good in this though. Stellar, powerhouse performance reminded me of Hanks in The Green Mile or Orson Welles in Citizen Kane.

So yeah, mixed bag really - there's hate for post-80s Murphy films sure, but this is one of the better ones. It's a solid watch (on netflix atm) and there's some good action and the bad guy is easy to hate, so there's a lot worse out there. I won't strongly recommend but I'll say it's worth a shot - you know what you're going to get.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 January 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

Metro

Filming Locations:

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco Bay, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$11,411,107, 20 January 1997

Gross USA:

$32,000,301

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$32,000,301

Company Credits

Production Co:

Touchstone Pictures, Caravan Pictures, Roger Birnbaum Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

117 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1