METRO
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
One of the stars of METRO was at the press screening. If you stay till the end of this review, I'll tell you a unique experience I shared with her.
First, I need your help. As I was counting up the cars being killed in METRO, I began to wonder: Exactly how many wrecks does it take to impress today's jaded audiences? Certainly half a dozen are not enough, but will a full dozen suffice? More to the point, at what count does the number become so ridiculous that the whole exercise becomes little more than a bad parody of a demolition derby? Whatever the number is, METRO exceeded it. Did you enjoy your holiday turkey? Would you have liked it more if you had eaten the whole turkey at once?
Let me confess that I found parts of METRO entertaining in spite of all of its failings, but TV director Thomas Carter should return to the medium he knows best. Here, he subjugates his movie's best parts to unoriginal, albeit well executed, stunt work. There is a good story attempting to get out when it is not buried under the debris left by a killer cable car.
The movie opens promisingly. Hostage negotiator Scott Roper, played with considerable style by Eddie Murphy, has his hands full. A crazed man has seventeen hostages held at gun point in a bank. The man's wild eyes testify to his edginess. In walks Scott to negotiate with him face-to-face. Through a combination of bravado and intelligence, Scott gets all of the hostages out alive.
At this point in the film I was optimistic about its quality. My faith, however, was misguided since the script by Randy Feldman (NOWHERE TO RUN and TANGO & CASH) spends little time in hostage negotiations. Feldman's forte is choreographing car crashes.
Feldman does throw in three subplots. The first has Murphy in love with Ronnie Tate (Carmen Ejogo). Ejogo is an incredibly beautiful woman with a melodious British accent. Her part is reduced to being sexy and vulnerable, but she does both with class. Unfortunately, every time their romance begins to get interesting and believable, the director yells "cut," and orders the stuntmen back on the set. Murphy plays his character with more compassion that I thought possible for him so the constantly truncated romance is frustrating to watch. I hate it when shows use subplots merely to titillate.
The second subplot is totally unnecessary and involves Scott's compulsive gambling. Scott's habit keeps sidelining the main part of the movie so he can go watch the ponies.
The third and most important subplot has Scott breaking in a new partner named Kevin McCall and played by the numbers by Michael Rapaport (BEAUTIFUL GIRLS). This "old pro trains the new hot shot" idea has been done a hundred times before, and METRO does nothing new with it.
In addition to the excessive reliance on action to carry the movie, there is a problem with the villain. Michael Wincott (BASQUIAT) plays jewelry thief and ruthless killer Michael Korda. The story would have us believe that he is one of the kill-everyone-in-his-path style criminals, but Wincott's lack of passion in the role makes him rarely convincing.
For reasons that escape me, the movie had more low bass than JURASSIC PARK. I guess that the director has been beside too many teenager's cars and he, like they, equate bass overload with power and sex appeal.
In a movie that could have benefited from more humor, Scott does get one good one-liner. When he and Ronnie come home from a foreign film, he complains, "my eyes still hurt from reading that movie." Well, my ears hurt when I left his.
Now for the promised story on why this screening was so unusual. One of the stars of the show was there live and even stayed afterwards in the lobby so we could meet her. Now, the piece de resistance. I confess to the world that when no one else was looking, I patted her rear.
Okay, so she was the dog in the movie, but she was cute and this was my first such interaction with a star. The people from "Bow Wow Productions" were there too and showed what a talented dog they had. In the movie the dog is owned by Ronnie and appears in quite a number of scenes.
METRO runs too long at 1:57. The movie drags in the slow parts, and the action sequences go on too long. The film is rated R. There is violence, profanity, brief nudity, but no sex. The show would be fine for teenagers. METRO is too frustrating and tiring to recommend, but it does have its moments. I give METRO my rating of average, which is **.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: January 15, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews