Taglines: Life is a negotiation.
Metro movie storyline. Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) is the best hostage negotiator in San Francisco. His girlfriend Veronica “Ronnie” Tate (Carmen Ejogo) is a newspaper reporter. While listening to a horse race on his car stereo, Scott is called downtown where a man named Earl (Donal Logue) is holding 17 hostages in a bank. Scott rescues the hostages by shooting Earl, though Earl’s wound is non-fatal.
Scott is then assigned a partner – sharpshooter Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport). That night, Scott takes his friend, Lieutenant Sam Baffert (Art Evans), to see a man named Michael Korda (Michael Wincott). Scott waits downstairs while Sam is in Korda’s apartment. Sam asks Korda about a man who deals in stolen jewellery, because Sam suspects that some of the dealer’s jewels came from Korda, who is a professional jewel thief. Sam’s visit with Korda ends with Korda violently stabbing Sam to death in an elevator. When Scott hears a woman in the building scream at the sight of Sam’s body, Scott rushes to the elevator and witnesses Sam’s corpse.
Scott wants to make Korda pay for killing Sam, but Captain Frank Solis (Denis Arndt) refuses to let Scott work the case, so Scott decides to work the case on his own. Scott and Kevin later are called to a downtown jewellery store where hostages are being held. When Scott sees that Korda is the hostage taker, Korda grabs a hostage and leaves in a truck. Scott and Kevin use Captain Solis’s car to chase Korda. Korda wrecks the truck, and boards a cable car, shoots the operator when he challenges Korda, the cable car accelerates to runaway speed, while Scott and Kevin chase the cable car. While up close, Scott jumps onto the cable car, leaving Kevin to drive Solis’s car.
Scott and Kevin manage to stop the cable car, and they chase Korda into a parking garage, where Korda tries to run Scott over with a car. Scott and Kevin still manage to apprehend Korda. During visitation at the jail with his cousin Clarence Teal (Paul Ben-Victor), Korda orders Teal to kill Ronnie as a way to seek revenge on Scott. Teal shows up at Ronnie’s apartment and attacks Ronnie. Scott arrives just in time and chases Teal down the fire escape, and after a knife fight, Teal is hit and killed by a car. An angry Scott visits Korda in jail and warns him to stay away from Ronnie, showing him an autopsy picture of Teal, which enrages Korda.
Metro is a 1997 American action comedy thriller film which was directed by Thomas Carter, produced by Roger Birnbaum, and starring Eddie Murphy as Scott Roper, a hostage negotiator and inspector for the San Francisco Police Department who immediately seeks revenge against a psychotic jewel thief, Michael Korda (Michael Wincott), who murdered Roper’s best friend, Lt. Sam Baffert (Art Evans). Released on January 17, 1997 in the United States, Metro grossed $32,000,301 in the domestic market, which failed to bring back its $55,000,000 budget.
Metro (1997)
Directed by: Thomas Carter
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Michael Rapaport, Kim Miyori, Donal Logue, Art Evans, Jeni Chua, Carmen Ejogo, Nino Degennaro, Dick Bright, Michael Wincott, Karen Kahn
Screenplay by: Randy Feldman
Production Design by: William A. Elliott
Cinematography by: Fred Murphy
Film Editing by: Peter E. Berger, John Wright
Costume Design by: Ha Nguyen
Set Decoration by: Jerie Kelter, Reed Maidenberg, Darren Jon Taylor
Art Direction by: Greg Papalia
Music by: Steve Porcaro
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and language.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: January 17, 1997
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