Sean Ellis makes the struggle to support a family matter enough to sustain a sometimes overworked crime thriller. Jake Macapagal and John Arcilla give it the human weight that its busier plotting risks losing.
Metro Manila is a good crime thriller whose concern for a family’s survival makes its dangers matter. Sean Ellis gives Ramirez’s need to provide enough attention that a new job can carry real dramatic weight. The film is less sure-footed when the crime plot gets busier, occasionally pressing too hard for both suspense and sympathy. Even then, the people remain worth following, which is a considerable advantage in a story about money.
Jake Macapagal gives Ramirez an openness that could easily have become mere helplessness. He makes the character’s wish to support his family convincing without asking us to admire him simply for wanting it. Althea Vega, as Mai Ramirez, helps keep the family scenes from becoming an introduction we sit through while waiting for the crime. The film is particularly persuasive when their immediate needs are allowed to set the pace, without another complication being introduced to hurry things along.
John Arcilla gives Douglas Ong enough force to make Ramirez’s new working relationship the film’s most absorbing element. Their exchanges in the armoured-truck story bring a welcome uncertainty after some comparatively familiar scenes of family hardship. We felt tense watching Ramirez with his new partner, because his need for the job makes every exchange feel consequential. The performance holds our attention without requiring another piece of information to keep us interested, and the film benefits whenever it allows these encounters time.
Sean Ellis also handles the cinematography, and the detailed views of Manila do useful work beyond establishing a location. The scenes of everyday city life keep the family’s struggle connected to surroundings that do not exist solely to illustrate their difficulties. Ian Traifalgar’s production design contributes to that sense of a working, inhabited city, making the places where people live and work convincing. Occasionally the images seem too pleased with their own finish, but there is usually enough human activity to keep our attention on the people.
Richard Mettler’s editing is more effective once Ramirez and his partner begin to carry the suspense. The earlier family drama takes longer than it needs to establish how precarious their circumstances are, and at 120 minutes the film has room for some repetition. Robin Foster’s music adds pressure, although the performances have already supplied much of the anxiety. A little less insistence would have helped the passages that ask us to feel the family’s hardship most keenly.
The screenplay by Sean Ellis and Frank E. Flowers sometimes makes poverty too convenient a route into crime. Several of the family difficulties feel familiar before the film has found anything particular to say about them, and the later plotting asks for more indulgence than the quieter scenes do. We will not describe its turns. These reservations matter because the performances have encouraged us to expect behaviour we can believe, even when the circumstances become extreme.
The film could have spent longer observing its people without moving them towards the next danger. Still, its attention to the reasons Ramirez cannot simply walk away from his work gives the thriller a substantial advantage: the prospect of losing a livelihood already carries a threat. That concern survives the more strained plotting and keeps the action from feeling disposable. Give it an evening if a crime story needs people worth worrying about to hold your attention.
