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| A slick and simple poster for Mike Hodges' Get Carter |
Jack Carter is a gangster, whose brother has been killed. Now he searches out people with knowledge about the murder, until he finds the culprit. SPOILER He shoots the killer on a beach and is then sniped himself.
Get Carter is written and directed by debuting Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon (1980)), based on the novel Jack's Return Home (1970) by Ted Lewis (All the Way Home and All the Night Through (1965)).
England has rarely been drawn as a more hideous and dismal place than it is here, and regrettably the script doesn't lead one to care for a single character in the film either. When a film decides on a tone as cold as concrete at the dead of winter, I think it is pivotal that it makes up for it with some color or charm in its characters. With both of these negatives, the result with Get Carter is a dreary British crime flick, in which the only thing to interrupt the short-bitten, dull dialog and Michael Caine's (Last Orders (2001)) tight-lipped, side parted, horrid-looking anti-hero protagonist is a squeaking wind. Get Carter is a dreadful bore and wildly overrated.
Caine at the time of the film's release sends a message in a video here
Cost: 750k $ or £ (different accounts)
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Get Carter premiered 3 February (USA) and runs 112 minutes. Hodges was paid 7k £ to write and direct the film. Established star Caine's salary is not known. Shooting took place in England, including London, from July - September 1970. The film was reportedly a theatrical hit in Great Britain, where it was the 6th most popular at the 1971 box office. In North America it was shown on a double bill at drive-ins. Distributor MGM favored promoting another adaptation of Lewis' novel; blaxploitation movie Hit Man (1972). Get Carter was released in a long row of markets but its theatrical gross numbers are regrettably unreported online. It was nominated for a BAFTA. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. The film was remade under the same title in 2000 with star Sylvester Stallone, a film that was a massive failure critically and commercially. Hodges returned with The Frighteners (1972, TV-series)) and theatrically with Pulp (1972), again with Caine. Caine returned first in Kidnapped (1971). Get Carter is fresh at 84 % with a 7.14/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Get Carter?
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