'Metro' travels same old stops on same old line

By Bret Galloway

JAKARTA (JP): Imagine a Hollywood film that doesn't mechanically seek to recreate former successes, that has genuine spirit, three-dimensional characters and that certain "qua", as Cuba Gooding Jr. put it. Got it? Well, it's not Metro.

In Thomas Carter's film, Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) is a hip, savvy police hostage negotiator whose personal life is crumbling around him. He's in debt from gambling; his car has been repossessed; his ex-girlfriend Ronnie (Carmen Ejogo) is now dating a professional baseball player worth US$2 million a year. When his friend and fellow cop Sam Baffert (Art Evans) is killed by a psycho jewel thief, Roper wonders if he hasn't pretty much reached rock bottom.

After some quick, obligatory scenes of woe and anger, Roper starts climbing his way back up the ladder of happiness. He wins back his girl by being extra nice and attentive, and above all by swearing not to gamble any more. Ronnie has just been waiting for Roper to get in touch with his soft, cuddly side so he can confess how much he needs her.

Shunning introspection or the painful, wrenching process of real self-discovery, Roper decides instead to throw out a few sugary words and, voila, before you can say Eldridge Cleaver, the lovebirds are cooing sweetly again.

Roper then comes face to face with the cool and cunning Mike Corter (Michael Wincott), the man who killed Sam. Roper and his dapper, milk-fed partner Kevin McCall (limply played by Michael Rapaport) chase Corter through the hilly streets of San Francisco and succeed at last in putting him behind bars.

With girlfriend in tow and scumbag in chains, it looks like things are hunky-dory and we can go home, right? Wrong. Corter escapes (oh-so-easily) from prison and kidnaps Ronnie, seeking to trade her for the jewels which he stole and the police have since impounded. And so we are set for a denouement which is about as surprising as a traffic jam in Jakarta.

Many can forgive Randy Feldman's anemic script, Carter's hackneyed direction and the tepid overall acting, but even action lovers will find that Metro lacks the sparkle to keep them interested and be bothered by its consistent inconsistencies.

In one scene Roper explains his method of picking horses to McCall. When Roper confidently asks him what he thinks of it, McCall replies, "I have only two words for you: seek help," to which Roper replies, "Well, I have only three words for you: ex- ac-ta." Neither is 'exacta' three words nor is the joke funny. Too much of Metro leaves us numbly stupefied like this.

Or there's the scene where Roper first meets McCall and gives him a test in lateral thinking, that is, seeking creative and uncommon solutions to problems. He drops a pen cap into an empty Coke bottle and tells McCall to get it out without touching or breaking the bottle.

We expect the exercise to figure meaningfully later on, but no dice. Not even a feeble, obvious attempt. In fact, we watch as Roper proceeds to act emotionally and predictably throughout the film, especially when dealing with the far cleverer Corter.

In the final showdown, Roper, Mr. Cover-All-Angles, sneaks in a pistol but oddly neglects to load it with more than two rounds! Great lateral thinking.

As for originality, we have scenes like the one where Murphy clings to the hood of a pickup driven by Corter. Gosh, nobody's ever done that before. Not unless you count the thousand or so times since the early 1970s. At least Indiana Jones had enough sense of the artistic and novel to crawl under the speeding truck.

Although Murphy can act well enough, his Roper lacks luster or charisma. When he isn't spewing four letter words, he's so cloyingly sweet and tender that we feel shades of Stallone from Daylight.

Wincott (Basquiat, The Crow) is excellent as a psycho criminal when he is cool, but when he loses his temper, which he does too often, he relinquishes his icy menace and is simply moody.

One thing that does work in Metro is the hostage and chase scene in the middle of the movie. It is well edited and choreographed and will engender a twinge of tension in even the cynic.

But smashing cars aren't enough to save this movie. Missing are the one-liners and compelling quirkiness of action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. And, let's face it, Bullitt generated far more thrills from the streets of Frisco back in 1968 with much less techno-wizardry and a much smaller budget.

People who enjoy watching the screensaver on their computers will find lots of excitement in Metro, but those with a modicum of imagination may want to bring along a copy of the phone book to occupy their time.