O Negociador

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.

It doesn't always work, and Eddie Murphy is no substitute for a proper action star like Stallone or Mel Gibson, but at least he tries in this film. Metro has a clichéd plot about a diamond smuggler who murders Eddie's partner and it is Eddie's job to stop him, but Eddie does a great job and actually looks like he enjoys the role. He juggles the action and comedy scenes perfectly, and fortunately the two never overlap. The highlight of the film is the runaway tram scene, that is perfectly choreographed, and Michael Rapaport does a great job as Murphy's rookie partner. The film is not the best action movie around, but it is by no means the worst, and if you feel like being entertained for an evening, you could do a lot worse than this movie.

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.

Eddie Murphy plays a hostage negotiator in San Francisco, he lives a dangerous life, but he still thinks it´s pretty okay. One thing he doesn´t think is okay is when his friends gets killed. But that is just what happens, his best friend is murdered by an evil jewel-thief, and now Murphy wants revenge.

The plot in "Metro" did not really impress me when I heard about it. Eddie Murphy as a comical hostage negotiator... It sounds pretty corny to me, but it was actually not as bad as it first seemed. The action scenes are well made, especially the breath taking car chases down the steep streets of San Francisco.

But I can´t really say the movie was good. The plot is not very original, this could actually have been titled "Beverly Hills Cop 4" and no one would have noticed. Between the action scenes there aren´t very much to write home about. Murphy is occasionally funny, but he can be really annoying too.

The best thing in "Metro" is definitely the villain, played by the underrated Michael Wincott. He is truly the perfect bad guy. That rasping voice, that glance in his eyes, wow! He can make even the simplest villain into a terrifying monster, which he should be highly praised for. And I wonder if not this guy holds the record in movie-deaths? I´ve seen Wincott in about ten movies, and he gets to meet his maker in all of them! I almost feel sorry for him, but I don´t think he´s complaining too much. If he dies in "Metro" or not, I´ll let you figure out for yourself.

Back to "Metro" now. If you don´t expect any clever ideas, just some good action sequences with a silly plot, it´s not that bad. But on the other hand, not that good either.

* * ½ out of * * * * *

Perhaps the biggest problem in Eddie Murphy's career always was, that people expected him to be a fast talking guy whose mouth gets him in and out of trouble. As soon as he tried to escape that formula, viewers were in for a disappointment and found his movies below than average.

If you leave that behind, "Metro" is a solid action movie with a couple of remarkable stunt scenes. It's also very delightful to see that it tries to leave some of the usual "veteran cop gets rookie partner" routine behind and playfully mocks some standard suspense elements: you see a young girl in front of her opened bathroom mirror searching for something. The music swells. She starts to close it and what does the viewer expect? To see the face of the killer when the mirror closes. But nada. Those are really refreshing bits.

Murphy's performance is quite solid, the story is what to expect from an action movie and refreshed, as I said, by the bits above.