Get Carter

1971 "What happens when a professional killer violates the code? Get Carter!"
7.3| 1h52m| R| en| More Info
Released: 03 February 1971 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: https://www.getcarterfilm.co.uk/
Info

Jack Carter is a small-time hood working in London. When word reaches him of his brother's death, he travels to Newcastle to attend the funeral. Refusing to accept the police report of suicide, Carter seeks out his brother’s friends and acquaintances to learn who murdered his sibling and why.

Genre

Thriller, Crime

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Director

Mike Hodges

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Get Carter Audience Reviews

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
UnowPriceless hyped garbage
Bereamic Awesome Movie
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Pjtaylor-96-138044 Often hailed as a classic of the gangster genre, perhaps 'Get Carter (1971)' was 'groundbreaking' initially because of its cold and callous depiction of both its central character and the criminals he essentially calls his co-workers. It hasn't aged too well, though, with many misogynistic moments and a general poor treatment of women coming up too often to be considered just unfortunate 'by-products of its time'. It is also incredibly dull, attempting to be a slow-burning thriller but instead just being slow. There is a proper nastiness to the picture, a pulpy heart beating underneath its calm and collected exterior, but this often comes across as ever-so-slightly 'glamorised' even if Carter himself isn't really considered a 'hero'. It's in its seedier side that it finds its most success and, somewhat paradoxically, its most failure. While there's a sense of violence begetting violence and criminality spreading to even the most innocent like a corrosive virus, there's also a sense that the movie revels in its depiction of these elements (especially those that concern its female characters) even as it condemns them, to a bizarre and often off-putting result. Its biggest issue, however, is that it isn't ever entertaining. 5/10
HotToastyRag In the era of horrible style also known as the seventies, thank goodness for Michael Caine. Despite the ridiculous sideburns and excessive hair gel, his beautiful blond curls break free and wave to the audience, reminding the ladies that he's not confined by the hairdo of the decade. If you never really thought of Michael Caine as a sex symbol, you've obviously never seen Get Carter. Get Carter, one of his most famous films of that time period, shows off every single one of his talents, illustrating why he was and is such a fantastic icon.The plot is simple: Michael Caine's brother was killed, and he sets out to make the bad guys pay. If you like vigilante justice movies, you'll love watching one of the earliest examples of the genre. While the beginning is a little slow, just remind yourself that it was made in 1971, and all movies were practically required to have slow starts back then.However, because of Michael Caine's acting chops, the film is much more than just a vigilante justice movie. Yes, he goes around killing bad guys, but his face shows so much more emotion than is written out in the dialogue. When he learns some unpleasant family secrets, he's hurt, disgusted, guilty, angry, and remorseful-all in about three seconds of a close-up. He switches his persona from scene to scene, easily convincing audiences that he's completely in the moment and aware of his intentions, whether he's mourning the loss of a life or taking someone's life. The same man whose eyes brim with tears turns hard and callous when he threatens bad guys. He's incredibly seductive with every woman he meets, and while his one-track mind is visible to the audience, in an instant he turns the charm off and returns to his main goal. It's awe-some, and a bit frightening; from a woman's point of view, if Michael Caine's character were real, I know it would be dangerous to get involved but it would also be impossible to resist him.One aspect of the film that I liked was the lack of gore, and once again that's due to the time period of its production. There's plenty of violence, but very little blood, and the tone isn't at all diminished. At the same time, while the violence was toned down, the sexual material was ramped up, earning an X rating during its initial release. Now, since movies are much more violent and have frequent sex scenes, it's been given an R rating. But boy, are those scenes steamy, even by today's standards! I don't think it's possible to watch this movie and not develop a massive crush on Michael Caine. If any part of you doubts me, give it a watch and get ready to fall in lust.Kiddy warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to nudity and graphic sex scenes, I wouldn't let my kids watch this movie.
sammy A disclaimer to begin with. I do take kindly to Michael Caine's movies from his younger days at least. Get Carter is no exception. Set against the bleak semi-urban backdrop of Northern England, the film tackles violence and crime in an intense manner.With no lighthearted moments , the movie can get to you with its dark tone , all the more magnified by the dreary climatic conditions of the locations.Caine does well as the tough , no-nonsense London gangster . The actions scenes on many occasions exude disdain . Though the story by itself is not very intriguing , the direction is superb and makes for a good watch. However, for the plot, the movie may seem a tad stretched , which can be dissuasive at times.Compared to some other movies Caine has starred in including a few Harry Palmer flicks and Play Dirty, the plot is rather straightforward . Some actors do not act out their roles well and some sequences are a little roughly cut. However, the movie is a far better exposition of a revenge drama than anything of late. On the whole the movie is superb and entertaining.
paul-337-540260 My original interpretation of the cinematographer/director's style was that it was placing the camera in the position of someone spying on the scene. I think the word "spy" though is wrong. It is the position of a voyeur. The rough, hand-held style relied on a "foreground obstruction" aesthetic, too -- the motion of the camera and the intervening objects/people divided our attention between the story as an objective thing, and made me at least feel as though we are seeing found footage from a documentary that is asking us to form an opinion from a mass of distracting elements.Later, the obstructions, distractions, and extras change from being incidental to the story to becoming central to the story.I got the sense right away that Jack Carter had come home to figure out what happened to his brother. He clearly didn't buy the drunk driving accident myth. And yet Jack shaving over his brother's coffin (showing no respect) and then his covering his brother's face (showing respect) communicates ambiguity about Jack's character. Is he an anti-hero taking on a moral vendetta, standing in for any of us who have seen or been victim to injustice? Or is he something else? The sex started out as fun, and the women were beautiful. The way it was shot (the rocking chair scene, for example) used women in the foreground (or, Britt's legs in the foreground) to bring them forward in our awareness without them being the main plane of focus (either Jack on the phone or Britt's beautiful and erotic face). The rocking chair evoked the sounds and rhythms of sex but was absurdly quirky - a real point of humor, I think, but the beginning of how the director starts to blend sex, violence and humor. We also see at the end of the rocking horse scene that the phone sex was not with Jack's monogamous partner, but that he was deeply in the erotic imagination of a woman attached to another man, and he was forcefully and unapologetically going to exploit his position there. Even though what we learn about Jack in the rocking chair scene by itself happens to thousands or millions of people, in the context of the shaving scene and his penchant for paying people to do his bidding (at their risk) or to non-apologize apologize, we begin to see him as emotionally ill or detached. Not just an anti-hero.Also early in the movie when there is a sex scene, before the audience gets a chance to let their heart slow down, bad guys show up to menace Jack - with the timing of the arrival of bad guys quickly converging precisely on the moment of intercourse. Jack confidently wields a large gun and forces bad guys onto the street, following after them with no compunction, is funny ... but at the same time showing something menacing about Jack. A lack of shame becomes somehow foreshadowing for a deep lack of morality or empathy.So now we get to the question: Is he a psychopath? The cruel language he uses with women, his roughness with them, particularly in the beginning, could perhaps at the time be understood as a grieving brother amidst prostitutes who were hiding information about his brother's death. But from 2015 -- and from the perspective of what we learn about Jack by the end of the movie -- he was a misogynist. Indeed, the disturbing scene where he gives his ex-brother's lover/regular prostitute an overdose shows him as calculating and without any empathy.It's interesting to me that the core moment when Jack learns the motivation for everyone's bad before -- seeing Doreen in a porn film -- he goes from enjoying the film to being devastated. This is precisely what I was going through. I loved the beautiful women in the film and was willing to suspend my critique of their characters for some cinematic pleasure. But as the characters were having sex, the director was presenting them to us as a voyeur. The director's style was voyeuristic, and he had successfully made me a voyeur as well. That transition of the viewer's role is disturbing. And Jack goes from that moment of "harmless" and pleasurable porn viewing and fantasy to a realization of the depth of exploitation involved.The ending is covered in filth, waste, inhumanity. When Jack finally kills the man responsible for his brother's death, his grim, angry face doesn't just laugh, it cackles. Has he cracked? The article I linked to above makes that case, but I don't think so. That would imply he has, at that point, lost his moral code. I think he never had one. So the laugh, in my view, is instead a proof point: He is a psychopath. And so, when he ultimately is shot in the head and lies in the filthy tide, I was shocked, but not, in the least, sad. After the police show up at the mansion and pull all the partiers outside, the director presents them to us -- almost as a line-up. (He is cutting between this and other scenes). These people, formerly drugged-up, naked, and otherwise debauched, looked like a cross-section of English society. After a movie of being a voyeur looking at the dangerous world of gangster violence and sex, we now find ourselves looking at ... ourselves.