Get Carter

Rating:
Summary: Caine Has Never Been Better!
Review: For those of you used to seeing Michael Caine from his films in the late 70s through the 90s, be prepared for a surprise. Even Caine has admitted he often chose his films only for the money. But Get Carter (1971) was before all that. Get Carter is the story of a hired killer's return from London to his hometown, a gritty town in England, to investigate and avenge the death of his brother. This is no travelogue; there are no picturesque views of jolly olde England/London in Get Carter. Much of the story was later virtually lifted by The Limey, another great film, in which Caine would also have been perfect. But here, unlike Terence Stamp in The Limey, Caine plays Carter as an ice cold, cruel, brutal ruthless sociopath. You root for Carter, but he doesn't make it easy. Caine has never acted better or looked cooler. Each of the smaller supporting parts are brilliantly played by unknown English charactor actors. The dialogue is dead-on, and the score, by Roy Budd, is unforgettable. Mike Hodges in his directorial debut, shows us the real underbelly of pornographers, hoods and small-time criminals in a gritty working class English town. Neither Hodges nor Caine were ever better. Get Carter is now being remade starring, of all people, Stallone, with Caine playing a bit part, and the setting changed to the USA. Skip it, and order a copy of Get Cater immediately, the day it's out on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Sly - abig man in bad shape with Carter it's a full time job
Review: I watch, enjoy and love so many, many films...but if I had to pick one as being my absolute favourite, it would have to be this one. Michael Caine in a move to shed off his "lovable" Cockney 60s persona's (eg. Alfie, The Italian Job etc)stars as Jack Carter, a mid-level London criminal who decides to go back to his hometown in Newcastle to find out the real reasons behind his brother's recent death.

Upon arrival he cuts a path through the local crims and con men to find out "...what really happened". This film is just so entertaining. Caine has never been better. He's icy cool and malevolent, has the right quip for any occaision and will stop at nothing to reach his goal. The Tyneside locations are absolutely perfect in reflecting both the urban and moral decay that seems to prevail, Hodges' direction is tight and well paced, Roy Budd's music is eerie and loaded with 70s cool, all the supporting characters have their own moments, the dialogue is great and the action setpieces are gritty and realistic, and above all (as was the late 60s - mid 70s practice) no charcter comes out of this film a winner.

I have been burning for the DVD release of this film for some time now and I cannot wait to see the film remastered and with a bunch of extras. Having finally got to see it at the cinema recently has only fanned the flames further.

This is a wonderful, wonderful film (especially if you like crime films) and the recent news of Sly Stallone's remake fills me with horror. Is nothing sacred anymore? This film didn't need a remake (although I admit affection for Bernie Casey's "Hit Man"), and that's because they got it so right the first time...

Rating:
Summary: Mike Hodges lean, mean anti-hero epic.
Review: This is the film where young, cool-head cockney actor Michael Caine "made his bones" by mercilously breaking some. Jack Carter is Limey-Mafia enforcer out for vengeance in a grim noir film that cuts no slack on the so-called "glamour of evil". Not a single character in the fine ensmeble cast is spared "poena damni" as either a loser or(brutally killed)lost soul. This is Mike Hodges'(CROUPIER)existential epic about bottom-feeders of British low-life gangster demi-monde. The movie works because Caine is consummate,unapologetic anti-hero who takes us on his cheap sex; cheaper-drugs; rife with punk-thug violence,odyssey. His unholy grail is "'I the Jury!'" JUSTICE"...and its ultimate cost in his own dehumanization. Jack Carter's violent journey to oblivion is "proof" of poet Blake's dictum:THEY BECOME LIKE THAT WHICH THEY BEHOLD...YET AMAZING IN STENGTH or HOWLING IN DREAD AND PAIN.

Before PM amorality became fashionable, GET CARTER presented cinematic view-to-a-kill about how a brave man...who perhaps could have been honorable and heroic. Caine shows how easy it is to sell one's soul for a moment of what the world calls TRIUMPH. This isn't a pleasant movie to watch. But--unlike the bogus remake with Sly Stalone--Caine asks no sympathy for Jack Carter. With jolting portrayal of remorselessness in evil,he redeems a film "about an irredeemable man". Entertaining, no.Illuminating? Yes...(4 & 1/2 stars)

Rating:
Summary: Get Caine's best performance in this gritty film.
Review: This little seen gem features one of Michael Caine's finest performances in a taught, dark, perfectly realized character study of a professional killer who seeks revenge --no matter how high the cost may be.

The film was obviously a direct influence on several latter British films such as Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa. Films that unflinchingly focused on character, rather than story and presented a full dimensional portrait without justification or apology to the audience. It was remade as a blaxploitation film called The Hit Man too.

You can see it's influence on recent films such as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Limey with their simple revenge driven motifs. Those films however add gimmicks and tricks to the mix. Get Carter trusts its material and it's actors and stays disturbingly quiet, and on the surface simple-though internally quite complex. It's a bit of a stretch but there are influences of Get Carter in Taxi Driver as well.

Get Carter remains a very English (as in British) film. It's a film which was undoubtedly influenced by John Boorman's 1967 classic Point Blank.

The way Michael Caine plays Carter will remind you of a darker, more cynical and somewhat more mature Alfie (the cheeky Casonova from the 1966 film that made Caine an international star). He's an over-confident, immoral, womanizing hit man who'll snap his fingers and demand a pint of bitter in a thin glass and then later have phone sex, while being observed with his mistress, Brit Eckland (a cutting edge scene in '71).

Some of the events in the film are inspired by real life events, but ones few Americans have ever heard of (concerning British gangsters). The film is purposely stripped of any visual poetry and shows us a drab, Newcastle. There are seedy pubs, run down row houses, sloppy construction projects and polluted beaches peopled by working class people who have little hope, few dreams and little money. You won't find noir influenced shots of shadows and light, fog or atmosphere. Director Hodges is being stylish by carefully avoiding a sense of style, observing methodically, like footage shot for some unimaginative city planning board study. It creates an underlining feeling of despair and takes us to places almost absent of any charm, whose only character is one of slow rot. Of course this makes a good analogy to what Carter is internally. He's crossed over all ethical and moral lines in his life too many times to remain untouched. And he can't ignore what he's become when it's caused his brother to be brutally murdered.

At times Get Carter is a brutal film. There are sudden explosions of violence in the film which are ugly as violence truly is. When we realize there is a bit of good in Carter, it means we also realize he's made choices which have doomed him to this life. As the film progresses we realize that several choices he's made have created an inner-turmoil and horror Carter barely lets us see.

The film is slowly, not manically paced and invites some degree of contemplation. It becomes a rich film experience, though not a pleasant and breezily entertaining one.

It's a film of shadows, of thugs and gangsters who are not glamorous, or romantic in any sense of the word. The humor comes from the desperate bitterness of the characters we meet. Characters played to perfection by Ian Hendry, Bernard Hepton and John Osborne (who wrote the play Look Back in Anger).

Caine, is superb. He refuses to remind us he's acting and wears his role effortlessly. He never forces a line or a look or tries for audience sympathy or understanding. Anyone who relishes great performances will find this one among the best on film.

So even if you have seen too many gangster films, and even if the prospect of seeing a rather bleak one doesn't interest you all that much, perhaps the fact it contains Caine's best performance will convince you to watch Hodges' 1971, GET CARTER soon.

--Chris Jarmick, co-Author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder (- a steamy cyber thriller available January 2001. Please pre-order it today.)

Rating:
Summary: Sly - abig man in bad shape with Carter it's a full time job
Review: I watch, enjoy and love so many, many films...but if I had to pick one as being my absolute favourite, it would have to be this one. Michael Caine in a move to shed off his "lovable" Cockney 60s persona's (eg. Alfie, The Italian Job etc)stars as Jack Carter, a mid-level London criminal who decides to go back to his hometown in Newcastle to find out the real reasons behind his brother's recent death.

Upon arrival he cuts a path through the local crims and con men to find out "...what really happened". This film is just so entertaining. Caine has never been better. He's icy cool and malevolent, has the right quip for any occaision and will stop at nothing to reach his goal. The Tyneside locations are absolutely perfect in reflecting both the urban and moral decay that seems to prevail, Hodges' direction is tight and well paced, Roy Budd's music is eerie and loaded with 70s cool, all the supporting characters have their own moments, the dialogue is great and the action setpieces are gritty and realistic, and above all (as was the late 60s - mid 70s practice) no charcter comes out of this film a winner.

I have been burning for the DVD release of this film for some time now and I cannot wait to see the film remastered and with a bunch of extras. Having finally got to see it at the cinema recently has only fanned the flames further.

This is a wonderful, wonderful film (especially if you like crime films) and the recent news of Sly Stallone's remake fills me with horror. Is nothing sacred anymore? This film didn't need a remake (although I admit affection for Bernie Casey's "Hit Man"), and that's because they got it so right the first time...

Rating:
Summary: I'm Excited to get "Get Carter" on DVD!
Review: It's great news to finally be able to get "Get Carter" on DVD. Get Carter is an incredible film, one of the best of 1970's, that stars Michael Caine as "Carter" in probably his greatest performance, and is directed by Mike Hodges, which is his greatest film as well. This film may be one of the more brutally violent films that has ever been made, even by today's standards, which is amazing considering that it was made 30 years ago. It's about a mob henchman that goes on a quest for revenge when his brother is killed under suspicious circumstances. On his journey Carter encounters plenty of sex and violence. There are many memorable scenes in this movie including one of the most raw, brutal killing scenes that I have ever scene in which he stabs a former friend whom he suspects betrayed him. This movie is action packed, but not the mindless, loud, explosion-filled action of today's movies. The violence is both shocking and disturbing, however, there's a heavy price to pay. This movie will leave you dazed after finishing viewing. I highly recommend this movie to everyone with even a casual interest in great films, and is a must own for DVD collectors.

Rating:
Summary: Get this
Review: The grimmest, bleakest, and most often misquoted Caine film of the lot gets a look-in for its peerless use of locations as much as for its set pieces, although they are fantastic - Caine answering door naked with shotgun as drum majorettes march past, Caine making final delirious despatch with aid of seaside slag tipper, and of course the scene that's now forever to be known as "the out-of-shape bloke". Nowadays Old Maurice lives out his dotage on a cheeky chappie rough diamond reputation, but here's a good example of a man who's nothing but coal.

Rating:
Summary: An overlooked classic
Review: "Get Carter" is one of the original, and definitely one of the best, modern gangster films. There would be no "The Long Good Friday", "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels" or "Snatch" without this movie. Michael Caine as Jack Carter is the first bad guy in film history that you want to root for, but feel bad because he's such an evil person. The dialogue is razor-sharp, the sets and cinematography are as dreary as the Northern England location, and the last 30 minutes of the movie, especially the ending, will leave you with the need to stand in the sun for a long time. You'll understand why after you watch it. And, most importantly, AVOID THE REMAKE AT ALL COSTS!

Rating:
Summary: The girl... tell me about, the girl.
Review: "Get Carter" has got to be THE standout performance of Michael Caine's highly variable career. Caine, who was the undisputed "King of Cool" in 60's swinging London, has readily admitted that he took many a script just for the money... something he had in common with Sir Laurence Olivier! Anyway, I guess this is why we not only have the superlative "Carter," plus "Zulu," "The Ipcress File," "The man who would be king," and "Little Voice" amongst others, but we also have "The Swarm" and, "Jaws: The Revenge," 'nuff said?!

Caine's performance in "Carter" is breathtaking; you can't take your eyes off him for a moment as he completely jettisons his likable "cheeky cockney geezer" persona, seen in such films as "The Italian Job," and "Alfie." Here, Caine plays Jack Carter, a cold hearted, cold-blooded killer, an enforcer for the London Mob. I jokingly mentioned "Jaws: The Revenge" in my introduction, but one of the characteristics that makes Caine's portrayal of Jack Carter so memorable are his eyes. Throughout the whole film they're dead, like a sharks, with not a trace of humanity reflected in them; they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and with that being the case, Jack Carter's soul must be a thing of unmitigated darkness.

Carter is out to discover the truth behind his brother's death in the North of England, and if needs be, to exact bloody revenge on all concerned. The official report is that his brother's death was a suicide, needless to say, Carter doesn't believe that for a second... and with good reason.

The film begins with a prologue set in London, where Jack asks for time off from his enforcing duties to travel north; permission is reluctantly given, and Carter soon finds himself immersed in a desperately sleazy world of pornography and drugs. He starts making waves almost as soon as he arrives, roughing up the locals, asking questions people don't want to answer; "Do you, know a man, named Albert Swift?" It's obvious that no one, from the local porn-king, to his dead brother's girl, who may, or may not know the truth, wants him snooping around.

The story of "Get Carter" is brutally straightforward, and this is reflected in the actions of the title character. As the evidence starts to mount that his brother was in fact murdered, Jack becomes a terrifying angel of death, cutting a bloody swathe through assorted local low-life and scum. And it's this aspect of the film that sets it, and the character of Carter himself, apart from just about every other "gangster" film ever made. With neither pity nor remorse, and driven by the only emotion he can feel, a burning hatred for those who killed his brother and corrupted his family, Jack Carter sets about single-handedly exacting a terrible revenge.

In nearly all gangster movies, big, when it comes to guns, is good, and BIGGER is BETTER. The 'hero' invariably dispatches his adversaries to the grave with a witty quip and a hail of lead, preferably of the .357 or .44 magnum variety, lovingly captured in a hi-definition, slow motion ballet of death. This is a modern cinematic fantasy, and when done well - see nearly anything directed by John Woo - gives the viewer a visceral thrill to be sure, but it's not real.

The violence perpetrated by Jack Carter is real, shockingly so. He has a gun, two actually, a shotgun he uses in a blackly comic scene to warn off a couple of the boys sent from London to bring him back, and a pistol he uses in a brief shoot-out, but mainly shoves in peoples faces to make sure he gets what he wants. When it comes to dealing out retribution, knifing a man to death who's on his knees begging for his life, beating a man almost unconscious and then throwing him off an office block, half drowning a woman in her bath, kidnapping another woman and injecting her with a heroin overdose, or beating a man to death with the stock of his shotgun, Jack definitely prefers the personal touch... he's just that kind of a guy!

There's a rawness to "Get Carter" that is almost unique. The portrayal of the criminal underworld is grim and repellant, with, thankfully, no attempt at all made to mitigate the actions or character of Jack Carter, a very brave move on the part of the director, Mike Hodges, and Michael Caine himself. It would have been easy for Caine to have given us a nod or a wink, something to let us know that Carter isn't all THAT bad, but what we get is Jack, in all his undiluted savagery.

The most telling scene, and a stunning performance by Caine, is one where he's watching a porn film. What we see of the movie is shabby and degrading, and I won't go into details for obvious reasons. Jack watches, a cold, wry smile hovering around his lips as he enjoys a smoke, but his expression slowly changes to one of horror and disgust as he recognizes one of the participants. Then finally, and possibly for the first and only time, Jack Carter cries tears of pain and despair for another human being. This plays out wordlessly; you see it all written on Jack's face, as I said, a stunning performance by Michael Caine. "Get Carter" is an incredible film, it isn't always comfortable to watch, the final scenes will leave you drained and breathless, but it is a film I would recommend without any hesitation whatsoever.

Rating:
Summary: A tough and not too interesting mov
Review: MY RATING- 6.3

This is a mov I watched for only having one of the greatest actors of all time- Michael Caine.
The film develops in a strange way almost in a Raymond Chandler flair but this one is set on British locations. The story turned to be a bit disapoitting at the end and it gets even more bizarre with that music!
However it features one of the hottest girls of the 70's, Britt Ekland. Look at that erotic phone call made by Caine! Look also for "The Avengers" first season star Ian Hendry.
Overall, a tough and almost mean mov that is not for all tastes.