Metro Manila

2012

1h 54m

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

List

94%

33 Reviews

Tomatometer

90%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Oscar flees from a life of poverty and moves with his family to Manila. They fall victim to the hardened locals until Oscar finds work with an armored car company.

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Critics Consensus

Infusing thriller tropes with a searing glimpse of modern-day corruption, Metro Manila is just as gripping as any action blockbuster -- and twice as thought-provoking.

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Radheyan Simonpillai

NOW Toronto

The painstaking set-up for the heist is both admirable in its detail and off-putting in the slick way it exploits poverty, reducing social drama to a genre gimmick.

Rated: 2/5

Sep 19, 2014

Full Review

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Proof that you can't go wrong with the same old story.

Rated: 2.5/4

Sep 19, 2014

Full Review

Linda Barnard

Toronto Star

As bleak as a Dickens novel, yet twinned with a contemporary heist drama, Metro Manila straddles two worlds in telling the story of a desperate family man who moves from a small farm to the city.

Rated: 3/4

Sep 18, 2014

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Metro Manila sports some excellent visual sequences, and manages to abstain from veering into overly soapy melodramatics... At its core, the film features a dynamite lead performance from Macapagal.

Sep 4, 2019

Full Review

Daniel Green

CineVue

Refreshing to see Metro Manila laud the little guy... This admirable approach is galvanised further by a quietly compelling performance from lead actor Macapagal.

Rated: 3/5

Mar 2, 2019

Full Review

Jared Mobarak

The Film Stage

The tone is much bleaker [then Cashback], though, showing his evolution as a filmmaker and person to embrace the world's cynicism with a lens no longer tinted by fun quirk.

Rated: B+

Feb 28, 2016

Full Review

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JJJJJJ J

This film delivers an engaging enough narrative who's ending gives it a reason to exists. The main negative of this film is that the main plot is often not emotionally engaging, and though it is enough to keep the story movie is not very powerful it is only at the end where anything is really said. I will also play that I felt sometimes as if the negative migrant experience was taken to the extreme with every negative that could occur, occurring. It was a bit over the top. But overall this was a good movie, its just the beginning and middle of the film could have done more then me, maybe built up and worked with more films then it did. If you think the plot sounds interesting you will likely enjoy though your overall takeaway of the film will very much rely on your opinion of the ending.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/21/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Dark and darker. It shows the reality of the Philippines and not just blue sea and islands. The slums, the suffering and the corruption.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

jeff n

Pefection. I watched it with my wife who's from The Philippines and she was constantly pointing out how accurate it was. This film captures life in Manila. It's laughable that people who've never lived this claim that the director failed to do anything more than exploit Filipinos with this film, when everyone who is from there praised it. As far as films go this is riveting and beautiful. You could be completely detached from the subject matter and this film will still grip you. This is masterful film making at it's finest. This is why people love films.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

excellent Filipino thriller. family move to Manila to earn extra money and the husband gets a job in security but gets inadvertently involved in a heist.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Pas le plus original des films

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Glad I randomly came across this movie on Netflix. Wow.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

Full Review

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Sean Ellis

Director

John Arcilla

Ong

Mailes Kanapi

Charlie

JM Rodriguez

Alfred Santos

Jake Macapagal

Oscar Ramirez

Althea Vega

Mai Ramirez

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73%

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Side Effects

TRAILER

for Side Effects

39%

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Synopsis

Oscar flees from a life of poverty and moves with his family to Manila. They fall victim to the hardened locals until Oscar finds work with an armored car company.

Director: Sean Ellis
Producer: Enrique González, Celine Lopez
Screenwriter: Sean Ellis, Frank E. Flowers
Genre: Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: Tagalog
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 25, 2017
Runtime: 1h 54m