So many of the films we now regard as classics were severely misunderstood when first released. Blade Runner received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, with critics saying it was visually arresting but insubstantial (snigger). The Shawshank Redemption sank without a… More
So many of the films we now regard as classics were severely misunderstood when first released. Blade Runner received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, with critics saying it was visually arresting but insubstantial (snigger). The Shawshank Redemption sank without a trace at the cinemas and was snubbed at the Oscars (but what do they know?). Both films have, through subsequent rehabilitation (and with Blade Runner, substantial revision), become recognised as the towering achievements they are.
In the same way, Get Carter was once lambasted as soulless, misogynistic garbage. Even fans of the film, like the American critic Pauline Kael, commented on the sense of moral emptiness at the heart of it. But nearly forty years on, Get Carter has survived the vitriol of critics (and a really rubbish remake) to take its place as one of the greatest British crime films of all time.
Get Carter is part of the 'Unholy Quadrilogy' of films released in 1971 which changed the landscape of what was acceptable on screen. The groundwork had been laid by the likes of The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy, but it was these films which truly blew away the rose-tinted looks of the late-1960s. The French Connection, Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange took audiences in the dark underbellies of British and American society, showing sides to these countries which had been swept under the carpet in the age of peace and love.
Get Carter is a happy meeting point between these three films, taking the British setting and violent sexuality of A Clockwork Orange, the vigilante edge of Straw Dogs and the crime thriller aspects of The French Connection. It is a rough, edgy and endlessly tense film which manages to get beyond both its exploitation roots and the pulpy nature of its source novel, producing both a really solid crime film and a biting attack on British society.
The film begins very slowly, with the introduction of Jack Carter in a brief scene before he travels from London to Newcastle to attend the funeral of his brother Frank. This opening is the weakest part of the film, and in reality most of it could have been cut. We don't really need to establish Brit Ekland's character in any great depth; not only is she largely incidental, but the graphic phone call between her and Carter paints a vivid enough picture of their relationship. In any case, Carter's reason for heading north, along with the antagonism between him and the other gangs, is clearly established throughout the first half hour.
Roy Budd's jazzy soundtrack underscores the film, but after watching it a few times you realise that there is really very little incidental music. The thing which is making the biggest noise on screen is not the cars, or the guns, or the boats: it's the landscape. The images of Newcastle and Gateshead which Mike Hodges puts on screen speak volumes about the state of urban Britain -- not just the poverty but the sense of standardised despair and awkward silence which permeates through these communities. Early on we see the funeral cars driving down the cobbled street meeting every house - row upon row of faded brick, fading into the smoky distance like a dream slowly dying of old age. Throughout key sections of the film the only noise on the soundtrack is a hollow breeze, which adds a sense of starkness which threatens to shred ones nerves at any minute.
The film is brilliantly anchored by Michael Caine, who gives his finest performance as the ruthless Jack Carter. In a huge departure from his light-hearted 1960s work, Caine builds on his typical understatement and uses it as the driving force for uncontainable. terror. Carter is someone who is brutal, callous, sexist and rude, and yet charming, quick-witted and immensely cool. The sight of Caine in that black trench-coat, carrying a shotgun and a whisky bottle, is an iconic symbol of British criminals; like the Krays, Carter is hard as nails when he needs to be, but also understands the power and place of both family and dignity.
What makes Caine's performance and the character so remarkable is that Carter is never played as a straight-out heavy or meat-headed psychopath. It makes sense considering that he only finds out his brother's true fate during the last third of the film; while his methods have been forthright, if not shocking, they are not necessarily motivated by blood lust. When he does tip over the edge, he does so both out of a desire to avenge his brother and -- just as importantly -- to protect those whom he loves.
Despite its graphic sexual content, which seems gratuitous on first viewing, Get Carter is an oddly moral film. It is not moral because it suggests that what Carter is doing is 'right'; while it is established that what Eric did to Frank was 'wrong', it does not necessarily follow that vengeance will right that wrong. The ending is perfect because it encapsulates the ultimate futility of vengeance, and by extension love -- in the very moment when he thinks that he and his family will be safe, Carter's happiness is taken from him by as cruel and cold a method at that by which he lived.
Instead, the morality of Get Carter lies in its simultaneous documentation and criticism of society, particularly with regard to sex. Nearly all the female characters who appear on screen are either topless or in short skirts for any length of time, but with the possible exception of Ekland, these scenes are not there for our titillation. Instead they are on screen to make a point about how degraded and corrupted society has become, from the exaggerated fashions of ordinary women to Kinnear's den of vice at his country home.
Carter undergoes a kind of transformation late in the film, rejecting casual sex and the lifestyle which goes with it. Up until seeing the porn film, he has bedded women willy-nilly; but after seeing Doreen being exploited, he openly weeps and singularly resolves to take out the culprits. The fact that he chooses to ring the police and send the film to the vice squad before he kills Eric is a clear sign that the character has undergone some kind of moral shift. It doesn't make Eric's murder any easier to condone, but it does demonstrate the film's commitment to its subject matter.
Get Carter is also surprisingly twisty for a low-budget thriller. With so many different characters and named being batted around, we have to keep our eye on the ball if we are to follow every turn and understand every development. The dialogue in which key plot details are revealed is well-crafted, so that it doesn't just feel like exposition. The best scenes from this point of view are Carter interrogating Thorpey, the conversation on the top of the car park, and the fantastic final encounter between Carter and Eric on the beach.
Aside from its slow opening act and occasional moments of gratuity, Get Carter is a near-as-damnit perfect film. Caine's sterling performance is flanked by a cast of great supporting ones, the highlights being a young Alun Armstrong and a caddish John Osborne (whose seminal play Look Back in Anger hangs over whole sections of the film). The dialogue is perfectly pitched, the direction is strong, and the tension is brilliantly sustained right up to the final minute. It's a crackling crime thriller packed with subtle social commentary, and it deserves its ever-growing reputation.
