Get Carter | | Cast : | Michael Caine, Ian Hendry | | Director : | Mike Hodges | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | March 18, 1971 | | DVD Released Date : | October 02, 2001 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | April 27, 2005 | | Summary | Once upon a time, Billy, directors made action films . . . | Content
 | This film is a standout example of the way they made action films back in the 70's: hard, grim, and without an ounce of mercy. To exemplify the difference between a 70's action film and one made currently, it would do to contrast this film with the 2000 remake with Sylvester Stallone in the title role. In the 2000 film, a touch of pleasant humor and romance are thrown in, and it is clear that Carter (Stallone), despite the fact that he makes his living as an enforcer/gangster, is basically a nice guy; someone it is very important for us to like and identify with. He ends up being the savior of all those he loves and cares for. He is a mush, is what he is. An anti-hero without any true anti.
Michael Caine dominates the original 1971 film Get Carter. He has the coldest eyes you will ever see on screen, and he has a heart made of Birmingham steel. Briefly told, the plot is one of revenge. Carter is a London gangster traveling north to the gritty, working class town of Newcastle to find out what happened to his brother, dead under strange circumstances.
Caine/Carter isn't really very cunning or smart. What makes him so dangerous is that he acts very quickly, almost instinctively like a huge cat on the hunt. A burning red engine, stoked to bursting with hate, drives Carter and keeps him alive in this world of wolves and sheep. No actor can portray pure hatred like Michael Caine, and the teeth-barring moments when Jack Carter is moved to violence are truly scary. Once Carter begins to unravel the truth, he becomes a force without pity. Where Stallone can't help but wish to be liked, Caine is about as repulsive a protagonist as the screen has yet shown us. If we find ourselves rooting for him (and we do), it is because the movie has tapped into our own dark side. Nothing "life affirming" here. His vengeance is not done with splashy special effects or done artfully like Peckinpah's mannered "ballet of death" scenes. No, here the punishment is metered out like grim factory work, done under an ashy, wet sky.
This film is a vision into a mist-soaked hell, where rain falls instead of fire, absent of angels. It is also a masterpiece and not to be missed. -Mykal Banta
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| Rating | | | Date | December 05, 2004 | | Summary | The Toughest of the Tough! | Content
| GET CARTER is one of Michael Caine's greatest films, probably my personal favorite! With its gritty style and brilliant central performance, this is a stunning crime thriller.
Low-level London gangster Jack Carter (Caine) returns to his childhood home of Newcastle to find out who killed his brother, and why! In a way, Carter becomes a detective, trying to solve this very personal mystery, by any means necessary!
A ruthless professional, Jack Carter is cautious and calculated and never allows himself to get too close to anyone, not even those willing to help him uncover the truth. He dismisses a friend just as casually as he would an enemy! After all, when you're in his line of work, you can't afford to be too emotionally involved.
Then something happens!
While investigating his brother's death, Jack discovers that another relative - someone close - has been dragged down into his underground world. Someone too young, too innocent. For one powerful moment, Jack Carter's wall breaks down, and his emotions explode! The normally calm professional becomes an animalistic killer. Driven by hatred and bent on revenge, Carter kills his victims without prejudice, whether they're guilty or simply in the way!
Michael Caine is magnificent! He purposefully sheds his charming persona and becomes the ultimate antihero in Jack Carter. In any other film, Carter would have been the villain, and an intimidating one. But in GET CARTER, we sympathize with the character because we understand his mission, and because Caine allows us opportunities to witness Carter's human side, rare they might be. Nonetheless, Caine never lets us forget Carter's darkness, and the moment we start to root for him, he snaps us back into the realization that Jack Carter is not a good person. And you can't take your eyes off Caine! GET CARTER is as much a character study as it is a thriller. Kudos to the film's director Mike Hodges for allowing his lead actor to create such a flawed protagonist, without apologies.
Hodges should also be praised for showcasing the city of Newcastle as an important character in the film. There's enough darkness and grit instilled within the streets, pubs, and people to remind Jack Carter that he is unmistakeably home.
As the director, Hodges takes an interesting minimalist approach in terms of the music, cinematography and overall style, but it works perfectly! GET CARTER is a lean, mean masterpiece! And while his cast is uniformly superb, Michael Caine turns this masterpiece into a tour de force by delivering one of his greatest performances! |
| Rating | | | Date | October 18, 2004 | | Summary | Great Movie With a Great Performance | Content
| Michael Caine plays Jack Carter, a London gang member who specializes in strong arm intimidation. He learns that his younger brother has died in the north of England, in Newcastle, while drunk; maybe a suicide, maybe an accident. Carter, against the wishes of his gang bosses, leaves to find out what happened. He knows his brother never drank. He pokes around, ignores the warnings to lay off from both the Newcastle and London gangs. He figures out who is responsible and, despite murder attempts, starts to take cold-blooded vengeange.
Carter has no remorse. People who help him, people who get in his way, people who try to stop him, all get hurt. Often by Jack Carter; it doesn't make any difference to him. One kid who helps him gets beaten within an inch of his life. Carter is barely sympathetic. He kills a woman with an injection of drugs because she played a part in his brother's youngest daughter being in a porno film making the rounds. But he does it deliberately, for a larger purpose. He's a thug, but cunning, and he doesn't care. One nice touch: he reads Raymond Chandler. On the train ride to Newcastle he's immersed in Farewell, My Lovely.
In the end he succeeds, but pays a price that says irony may be even better than justice.
The look of the movie is grimy and tough. Newcastle is a workingman's town, with pubs that are dirty, featureless council flats, and a lot of concrete. There's no fresh air here, just stale breath and cigarette smoke.
This is one of Caine's great roles. He's utterly believable. A side note, one of the slimiest of the villians, a porn lord, is played by John Osborne, the playwrite who wrote Look Back in Anger.
I can't recommmend this movie enough. Mike Hodges, who directed, also directed Croupier and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 06, 2004 | | Summary | Classic British Gangster Film | Content
| I was fortunate to have first seen this film on a trip to London at a revival theatre in Leicester Square. I cannot imagine that Quentin Tarantino has not seen this film and has not on some subliminal level not been influenced by it. Everything about this film is great; the acting, the grimy Newcastle locations, the music score. This may be Michael Caine's greatest performance. You find yourself sympathetic to his gangster's quest to ferret out his brother's killer yet are repulsed at his methods in exacting revenge. Everybody I have recommended this film to has loved it (at least those who could stomach the violence) but admitted to me that they had never heard of it. On the DVD commentary track director Mike Hodges states that the U.S. distributor MGM didn't know how to market this highly original film so they double-billed it with "Dirty Dingus Magee". |
| Rating | | | Date | October 30, 2003 | | Summary | Get this | Content
| 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. |
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