METRO

More than 20 years ago, hero detective Steve McQueen pursuedain in a spectacular car chase scene over the steep, bumpy streets of San Francisco. Now in METRO, director Thomas Carter has risen to the technical challenge of creating a spectacular follow-up, with an even more spectacular out-of-control cable-car chase down the same steep, hilly streets. Eddie Murphy plays Scott Roper, a fast-talking, wisecracking, gambling-addicted hostage negotiator for the San Francisco Police Department, who intervenes at just the right time in tense hostage situations, with just the right macho bravado to save the day.

The movie starts as Eddie drives across the majestic Golden Gate Bridge in his Trans-Am. He gets a call to intervene in a police standoff, arrives at the crime scene late and demands to be permitted to confront the villain. Unarmed, he confronts the drug-crazed villain, who is brandishing his pistol. Through quick thinking, he persuades the hostage-taker to let him release a wounded bank guard. He then re-enters the bank to dispatch his man with an expertly aimed shot at the villain’s head during a moment of confusion, and the dozen hostages are released without bloodshed.

Enter Roper’s love interest, Ronnie, whose English accent and European sensibilities contrasts sharply with Roper’s vulgarity. Roper pines for her, but she demurs, telling him that she can’t stand the waxing and waning of his displayed affections for her. Meanwhile, Roper trains a replacement hostage negotiator, expert marksman McCall (Michael Rapaport), who surprises the cocky veteran by demonstrating his professional capabilities.

Then Roper and his friend and superior, Lt. Sam Bufford, pay a visit to a suspect, Korda, whom Bufford suspects of plotting a jewel heist. While Roper uses a pay phone to bet on a horse race, Korda murders Lt. Bufford and escapes. The next day, he asks the captain for permission to go after the murderer. The captain refuses, ordering him off the case because he is too emotionally close to the victim, but Roper remains adamant. This murder so enrages Roper that he insists on exacting vengeance, and he embarks on a risky personal vendetta.

With storybook convenience, Korda, the murderer, robs the jewelry store across the street from police headquarters and gets away, smashing dozes of innocent vehicles and surviving a fiery crash that would have ended any ordinary criminal’s career right then and there. Korda climbs out of the crashed car and catches a ride on a conveniently passing cable car. He cold-bloodedly murders the cable car ferryman and institutes what must be the most spectacular cable car chase scene in Hollywood history

Again, Korda gets away, but Roper and McCall pursue him to a high-rise parking garage, where every sound threatens gruesome violence, until he is eventually apprehended. In a jailhouse conversation which severely strains credibility (because all such jailhouse telephone conversations are normally monitored by professional guards), Korda orders his underling to attack Roper’s girlfriend, which Roper foils. Roper confronts Korda a second time via the jailhouse telephone and warns him not to tangle with him or his loved ones. Through movie logic, Korda escapes prison and threatens Roper again. The fiery confrontation ensues at San Francisco’s Mare Island Naval Shipyards, where Roper and McCall recklessly drive a Dodge pickup truck with a bag of confiscated Police Department jewelry to meet the ruthless killer without police backup.

METRO presents a worldly message that the best justice is revenge. Roper is motivated by personal revenge to right grievous wrongs with violence. However, God says in Deut. 32:35 that vengeance belongs to Him, and He will repay. After all, how could any earthly punishment compare to the eternal fires of hell for which not just sociopathic killers, but all unbelievers are destined? Had Roper displayed truly godly motives, he would have listened to his police captain and let the department capture the sociopathic villain, Korda, and the central conflict between zealous cop and determined criminal would have ended early.

Romantically, METRO has a better moral message, since Roper does not pursue many women, but confines his romantic pursuit to regaining his lost relationship with Ronnie. At later stages of the movie, both lovers toy with “taking this relationship to a higher level”, yet neither one proposes marriage, so their implied premarital sex is only fornication. Ronnie’s European sophistication contrasts sharply with Roper’s vulgar sexual innuendoes during subsequent dinner scenes. Roper’s interest in Ronnie also betrays the pagan worldview of the film, since Roper can conceive of no higher life objective than to find and hold Ronnie’s love. This contrasts with God’s explicit command to Israel to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength in Deuteronomy 6:5.

Overall, METRO numbs the viewer with relentless destructive intensity of the sociopathic Korda, who spares nothing and no one in his quest for stolen jewels. This film lives up to its R-rating with dozens of car crashes and graphic murders. Although the cast puts in credible, even excellent performances, the film leaves the viewer feeling empty, since no one offers the scriptural antidote to urban strife, which is contained in part in Psalm 55:9 and 16: “For I see violence and strife in the city…. But I call to God, and the Lord saves me.” (NIV)