Get Carter

Rating:
Summary: Do you want to go to the stable, Albert?
Review: I remember seeing 'Get Carter' as a kid and being swept along by director Hodges subversive intentions. You identify with Carter's strength, self assurance and success with women and want him to succeed but when vengence finally arrives you are repulsed and he ceases to be human. He becomes a monster. As such, I think this is one of the few exploitation pictures that is genuinely anti-violence. The plot though, is more like a B-movie western with a truly absurd body count. Lone gunfighter rides into town to avenge his brother. Visits the Saloon. The old barman routine. Sizes up the bad guy. Gets involved with the floosies. Has gunfight with the hired killer at dawn. This departs from the usual western cliche with a hilarious lack of chivalry. Only one man gets to 'draw'. The only element missing is the Sheriff who fails to see Carter wandering around with firearms in broad daylight, not to mention a gunfight at the OK dock. "You'll get us nicked!" Wails a cowboy to his cowhand who's blasting away with a shotgun. Fat chance of that, mate, the Sheriff seems to be both blind and deaf. Carter's eventual tally is something like seven people in a day (I count the couple in the car and the girl in the trunk.) Average score in a western, but rather unlikely in the north of England. But maybe I haven't lived.
There's three tasty geezers in the commentary. Well, only two as it turns out. Director Hodges seems to be have been fed laughing gas. Wish we could share his hilarity. Caine's contribution is surprisingly prejudicial to your actual working classes. He identifies rather too much with his character and menacingly claims to be from a family that had a 'reputation' that people ignored at their peril. Ooh, mummy. He then trots out a series of dispiriting East End cliches about the Kray's. Salt of the earth, loved their mums, helped pensioners and kept the streets safe from pondlife. Deary me. He contradicts the safety of this 'altruism' by revealing that it was he that suggested a family should be in the car Fletcher lands on courtesy of Carter, the inference being that gangsterism affects us all (er..?) Despite Caine's constant attempts to create a frisson regarding his roots, his portrayal of Carter doesn't always convince, especially in his mannered delivery. The commentary then frequently grinds to a halt due to the participation of the Cinematographer whom I took to be Jewish. Sadly, no Jackie Mason-like wit is forthcoming, only a hilariously monotonous and protracted rendition of where he put the lights, tripod, gaffertape, etc. I think it's time to get Carter.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't you kill my brother?
Review: Often overlooked in this film is its great music. The recurrence of a theme, played apparently on something with steel strings sets the mood of the film from the outset, then comes back from time to time during gaps in the dialogue. Caine gives his usual sterling performance and a few quotable lines 'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape!'. The supporting players are interestingly cast, but they're all up to it, even playwright John Osborne, not an actor by profession. Mike Hodges script is uncompromising and feels so authentic we feel like we live in the world of 1970s Tyneside crooks. It's ironic that while modern film-makers achieve this by casting former crooks as gangsters, here it is done by casting playwrights! Hodges also takes full advantage of his location, showing not just the picturesque (the Tyne Bridge) but other parts of Newcastle which provide appropriate backdrops to the action. The scene in the newly built block is one which stands out, giving us a brutal building with brutal people inside. The final scenes on the shore are to be savoured. By the end of the film, the story is so identified with Caine's London gangster in a Newcastle setting, that it beggars belief why anyone would want to remake it without using this central premise.

Rating:
Summary: Style, and some thoughts on 1970s nudity
Review: _Get Carter_ is a convoluted revenge drama, in which London mobster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) travels from London to the ganglands of Britain's industrial north, to find out Who Killed His Brother. And then kill them, which he does with some psychopathic flair.

But what really makes this film remembered, apart from another Michael Caine performance in his best 1970s vein, half ruthlessly competent enforcer, half insolent chancer, is its style. The London of this gritty film was never "swinging", and the north is a mysterious wasteland where grim iron fields of mysterious, rusting machinery lurk just behind every genteel workingclass street.

And this is a film where dressing the characters was nearly as important as giving them lines to say. Caine and the senior mobsters get about in sharp tight men's suits, shirts with long lapels and long tipped collars. Even the Northern gang enforcers are dandies, improbably stalking the streets in knee-length tan greatcoats: and, dated or not, those really were great coats.

Women wear white high heels, miniskirts, floral blouses and Big Hair. Though a surprising proportion of the female cast take their clothes off so that the puzzlingly irresistible Michael Caine can smudge their lipstick. One of them is Britt Ekland (...). On the other hand there's Michael Caine stepping out onto a genteel suburban street wearing nothing but a shotgun, confronting, in order of appearance, his landlady's prim and censorious neighbour, and an entire team of Marching Girls.

Marching Girls? Marching girls are one of the great British wierdnesses, like competitive ballroom dancing. Think cheerleaders aged between six and about 15, except that instead of chanting and jumping around like their American sisters, they do parade ground drill routines, in solemn silence. I have no idea why, but then I don't even understand cheerleading. Why don't these girls play their own sports? But ours not to reason why; their confrontation with a naked Michael Caine and his, um, shotgun is a fine sight gag, and nicely set up. It probably couldn't be done today, though it's an entirely non-sexual, funny, scene.

Still on the topic of nudity, Michael Caine's body, plumpish by current male hero standards but no doubt perfectly acceptable in 1970, reminds us of how grotesquely over-pumped the male bodies are in current action movies. The 1970 women also have real bodies, their flesh undistorted either by starvation or silicone, and looking much the better for it. Hmmm… This review seems to have been channelled by the undead spirit of Benny Hill, so far. I'll see if I can talk about something other than film nudity.

Like stylish cars. _Get Carter_ reminds you that in 1970 the British still had a motor industry, that built cars that were too solid and reliable for their own profitability, and beautiful Art Deco objects some of their products were too. But what else do you need in a film? The men are hard and the women are harder, the plot is tough, the script is excellent and full of telling and intriguing character details, while every acting performance, including Ekland's, is dead on target.

I won't give the plot away beyond observing that it turns out to be extremely Grim Up North. Actually the story is pretty much a Chandler plot transplanted across the Atlantic: a point underlined by the book Carter reads on the train as he heads north: _Farewell My Lovely_. Except that there's no Philip Marlowe in this film; on these mean streets there are no heroes, not even tarnished ones.

_Get Carter_ is a trendsetting film, though many of its most worthy imitators were only made 30 years later, for example _Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels_ and the other recent British gangland flicks. The recent re-make starring Sylvester Stallone, on the other hand, isn't one of the worthy imitators. It's a turkey, a flabby cliché executed without pace or style. The Michael Caine original, on the other hand, is sharp as a razor.

Recommended. (...)

Cheers!

Laon

Rating:
Summary: Definitive
Review: This is one of the great British gangster flicks of all time. All the new stuff on the market right now cannot hold a candle to this movie. You know the ones I mean, pale UK derivatives of Tarantino. Michael Caine was probably only better in "The Man Who Would Be King" and in "Zulu". His character here is completely amoral, which causes the brutal acts of violence to really be disturbing. And yet, he is not playing the carpet-chewing villain that today's movies show as gangsters.

Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Brutal, honest, and totally gripping.
Review: Phew. What a film. Right from the opening credits, the character protrayed by Michael Caine stands alone - cold, aloof, slightly psychopathic. The images are all striking and honest - this is a movie untainted by the pretensions of Hollywood, it is gritty and realistic and shocking. The storyline rolls along at a cracking pace - although it is not highly original, it is presented brilliantly, with the on screen presence of Caine adding a sense of menace and repressed violence. The end scene will leave you gasping for breath. Get Carter is not an enjoyable film, but a compelling one, which demands to be watched. You would be a complete idiot to try and remake it.

Rating:
Summary: boring and uninvolving
Review: gritty, though it is, this movie is very boring. caine turns in an ok performance, but the only saving grace of the movie is some quite beautiful nude girls. other than that, nothing else worth mentioning. stick with the godfather if you want a good crime movie

Rating:
Summary: classic with .. guts
Review: At 30 years old, this remains the modern crime thriller standard. It's the film that today's filmmakers have wanted to match and have either lacked the guts or imagination to do so. (Though "The Limey" and "Mona Lisa" are great in their own right. Frankly, when Steven Soderbergh made the "Limey", I think he was paying homage to "Get Carter".)

I had vague memories of seeing this on cable in the early eighties. Being a fan of Caine, I ordered it recently. When my brother and I sat down to watch it, we simply were rocked by its rawness. We who had sat through any number of Eastwood, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Get Carter's bleak violence and sex makes most contemporary thrillers seem like adolescent pretenders. The last third of the film, when he goes on a rampage, is simply not the sort of thing you're going to see in any thriller. It's brutal.

But it's real. And it works. You believe that beneath Carter's brutality there is a gangster's nobility, a willingness to throw away his fairly comfortable gangster's lifestyle for the sake of avenging an injustice. I found the end crudely satisfying.

Caine is a tremendous actor. He can be warm and sympathetic ("Hannah and her Sisters"); he can be funny and clumsy ("Gambit") and, in "Get Carter", he can be a ruthless, frightening gangster. No eyebrow raised to the audience to suggest that he's really a lovable sort. No compromises at all. A lesser actor would have done something to soften the edges of Carter. Caine didn't. It's an honest, courageous performance.

Rating:
Summary: ok like the other one better
Review: first off i do not care for micheal caine second he is no action star the movie seemed long and boring at most parts my favorite part in the whole movie was the end i know by writng this i am making alot of people mad cult classic no

Rating:
Summary: The days of true Caine.
Review: Along with "The Ipcress File",and "The Italian Job",and "Sleuth"this is one of Michael Caine's finest performances.Caine play's Jack Carter,who has to travel to Newcastle,to inquire about his brother's death.Once there Jack becomes a target to the local mobsters.Jack puts each piece of the puzzle together,and finds something totally unexpected.Gritty,well paced film-noir,with an inevitable,but entirely believable ending.A very good transfer from Warner,showing virtually no source faults,apart from minor,occasional grain,that hardly distracts.Overall 4/5 for picture,and for the film.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional gangster film
Review: This film has lost none of its power to shock since its first UK release, and the commentary soundtrack on the DVD is especially welcome.

It is definitely not an exhilarating experience, but has more impact than practically every 'famous actor revenge flick' cranked out in the 80s and 90s put together.

Totally memorable.