Murphy's Law
Having already done the cop thing in the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies 1997 saw Eddie Murphy return for another cop movie but one which was not all about Murphy's wise cracking persona. That movie was "Metro" a solid cop movie full of stereotypes, action and Murphy who whilst occasionally throwing in a wise crack plays the movie straight. And to be honest Eddie Murphy is good as Insp. Scott Roper, Murphy's confidence makes him entertaining and shows that given the chance he can handle drama. But "Metro" is so generic that it ends up a struggle to get into and the root that problem is a bog standard storyline which feels like it has been pieced together from other movies.
Insp. Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy - The Nutty Professor) is a top hostage negotiator, fearless when it comes to going face to face with maniacs with guns but his job and his love of gambling lead to him splitting from the woman he loves, journalist Ronnie Tate (Carmen Ejogo). When Roper puts away jewellery thief Michael Korda (Michael Wincott) who also killed his partner Lt. Sam Baffett (Art Evans) things start to settle down especially between Roper and Ronnie. That is until Korda escapes and sets about making Roper pay by targeting Ronnie.
You can literally reel of the cliches when it comes to "Metro" and maybe Randy Feldman didn't write it that way but the end product feels like someone has cherry picked elements from other cop movies and combined them into this one movie. As such it is hard to ignore the fact that the actual storyline to "Metro" is not only generic but totally forgettable from the opening which establishes Roper as being smart and fearless to the big action ending as he has to go one on one with Korda. And to be honest everything in between from Roper having a rookie to train, his relationship with Ronnie to all the action is just as forgettably generic. Don't get me wrong as there is nothing majorly wrong with it other than it feels like we have seen it all before.
It is the same with all the action from an opening hostage negotiation to car chases and drama on the trams of San Francisco it is all too generic. In fact if I have a criticism it is that many of these action sequences go on far too long and at times it felt like you could start one of these action scene walk away and make a sandwich and come back and the same scene would still be going on.
One of the reasons why those chase scenes felt like they dragged on is because "Metro" is a vehicle for Eddie Murphy and whilst he is solid as Roper he needed a strong partner so that it doesn't become an onslaught of Murphy. Unfortunately both Art Evans as Lt. Sam Baffett and Michael Rapaport as rookie Kevin McCall end up in the shadows with very little to do whilst Carmen Ejogo as love interest Ronnie seems wrong for the role due to a very prominent English accent. And sadly when it comes to bad guys the talented Michael Wincott is given a criminally under written character to try and make bad which is just impossible.
What this all boils down to is that technically "Metro" is a solid cop movie, it delivers a crime story, a tough cop and plenty of action with Eddie Murphy doing a good job of playing it straight. But it is such a generic movie full of stereotypes and cliches that it ends up a struggle to watch especially when action scenes go on much longer than needed.
