This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Did you people see the same film I saw?

best movie i've ever seen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I watched this recently as it is a well-known British classic thriller. As with a lot of these older films (made in '71) the sound quality wasn't great. That slightly spoiled my enjoyment of the film.If I was to choose a soundtrack that complemented a film perfectly, I would choose the Get Carter theme. The tune opens the film with a solo played on a harpsichord (I think) which evokes a sense of disaffection, and then in the film we arrive by train at a industrial wasteland that is Newcastle in the 1970's. Also a bass guitar is playing a groovy riff in background, and that is after we have witnessed in the film gangsters enjoying a porn film. The music sets up the film perfectly.It has been a while since I watched this film. It certainly reminded me of classic 70s TV programmes like The Sweeney and Play for Today. Gritty, sleazy and with a aftertaste of poverty. Looking back at it though it's quite a straightforward revenge flick. There isn't much character development for Michael Caine as Carter, but he is still good in a quiet, reserved performance.One surprise for me was that the film starred the famous English playwright John Osborne as one of the northern gangsters (Cyril). He is famous for writing plays such as Look Back in Anger. There is northern twist to this film with the backdrop of austerity in Newcastle played against the rich London gangster. Hands full of pound notes and drinking beer out of a straight glass. This brings an added interest to the film. I really thought the setting of the film is one of the most enjoyable parts of it, and alongside the haunting music really captures your interest more than it would in another location.If you want to recapture life in Britain in the 1970's you will love this movie, and it has some of the best British actors in it like Caine and Ian Hendry. The film starts fairly positively for Carter and then descends gradually into hell as he seeks more and more revenge. In the end there is no good guys left including Carter. I gave it a 6/10 because I felt it could have developed the character's back story a bit more, but it is one of those films that stays in your head long after the film ends.

GET CARTER is the anti-Hollywood gangster movie, a film which strips away the glitz and glamour one usually associates with the genre to deliver one of the grimmest-looking movies ever. The north eastern locations are wonderfully used with this being a very visual movie that really brings out the grubby dirtiness of an industrial wasteland.The characters, too, are grim. Michael Caine is the epitome of the anti-hero, a man just as cold, violent, and ruthless as those he pursues, except the viewer happens to be tagging along with him on his odyssey of revenge. The film's narrative has a mystery storyline as Caine attempts to uncover the circumstances surrounding his brother's death, and the supporting cast - including a memorable Ian Hendry - is exemplary.Being a film from the 1970s, the sex and violence is ramped up, particularly the former in an arresting phone sex scene with Britt Ekland. Caine is on top form, delivering what I believe to be his most frightening performance, and the script offers up some real corkers in terms of the dialogue. In fact, GET CARTER is a film which it's very difficult to criticise; everything about it gels together perfectly, and it's a real classic for a reason. Mike Hodges should be proud of his accomplishments here.

I first saw Get Carter when I was 15 when it was shown on ITV. The film was cut heavily- mainly by the broadcaster- and remember that it was the talk of the school the next morning. Admittedly a lot of the schoolboy discussion centred on the scenes in which Geraldine Moffat and, especially, Britt Ekland bare their breasts but there was enough realisation amongst my friends of nearly 40 years ago that Get Carter was rather a good picture.The film enjoys as high a reputation now as it ever has. Even in the late nineteen nineties when it and the original Ted Lewis novel on which it is based were re-released reviews were mixed. Part of the problem that people had , and I would imagine still have, with Get Carter is that people could not accept Caine as such a despicable figure as Carter proves to be. I had, in early 1976, only ever seen Caine in Zulu and a terrible film with Jane Fonda (Hurry Sundown I think) when I first saw Get Carter all those years ago so had less of a preconceived notion of what Caine should be like so he just seemed like a great 'baddie' who, eventually, gets his comeuppance (but only after the other baddies get what they deserve) but I can see now why at the time people who had loved Caine in the Harry Palmer films or in the Italian Job or as Alfie ( though I think that character is actually a swine)were aghast at this lovable rogue pouring whisky down Ian Hendry's throat prior to smashing his head in or throwing Bryan Mosley off a multi-story car park. And he treats women abominably. The film is criticised because it shows a lot of violence towards women - with other violence being implied- and I can see why people are uncomfortable with that but this is a gangster movie and gangsters are not nice people. I think it is a more legitimate criticism that the female characters are weak/submissive/untrustworthy but even so the most sympathetic character in the film is Carter's niece ( Doreen) and she is the one character who shows a kinder, even sensitive side of Carter.The film is now almost regarded as one of those dreaded 'national treasures' with some of its more famous lines like Ian Hendry's character Eric Paice having eyes like 'two pissholes in the snow' or the architects who remark after Carter throws Brumby off that car park ' I don't think we are going to get our fee' or a bystander in the post office who on being told about the man being thrown from that car park asks 'was he dead?' suggest a bit of jollity that is more in line with the Caine of The Italian Job but it is in truth a gritty, uncomfortable picture that even now seems pretty visceral. Although there is no hint of the supernatural in Get Carter the film made after it which is most like it in some ways is Eastwood's underrated High Plains' Drifter in which Eastwood's character wreaks similar havoc as an outsider arriving in a village that had some grisly secrets it wishes to be kept hiddenGet Carter is very much Caine's picture but John Osborne as the number one villain Kinnear as well as the aforementioned Hendry and Mosley provide great support and I have always liked Moffat as the flaky, lush, sports car driving girlfriend of Kinnear. Alan Armstrong - now a very highly respected actor- makes one of his earliest appearances and is pretty good and for a film set in Newcastle upon Tyne his is one of the few local accents heard. Ekland looks very nice in her black undies though I will admit that this particular scene serves little in the way of dramatic point.The film looks great with some great location shots of a Newcastle that does not seem to exist anymore and the Roy Budd score is superb- the title sequence in which the main theme is played as carter makes his train journey North is a magnificent scene setter in the class of Touch of Evil. I really like Get Carter and think it is one of the Holy Trinity of Brit Gangster films alongside the 1947 Brighton Rock and 1980's The Long Good Friday. It is brutal and the characters almost uniformly amoral but the story is neatly rounded out and the ending surprising but satisfactory. It is rather more than just seeing Britt Ekland in her pants as I and my old school chums once thought it mainly was.

For a start, I am only 21 so my perception of what was and is thought to be acceptable good film making might in some ways have been spoilt by the more recent sorts of films I 'grew up' with, but I was quite disappointed with Get Carter taken as a whole.The prime reason for me for giving this film a go lately was the recommendation of its plain striking atmosphere and given my personal fascination for the Tyneside area I definitely loved the 'authentic' setting of the scenery. It certainly is the thing I liked most about this work, but unfortunately that is almost it. Apart from this the film has some good moments (the very first few cuts of Eklands driving scene...like a couple of other elements this gets exhausting) and the somewhat nihilistic straightness and turns of the plot, let alone the congenial ending, are one thing I could highly enjoy on one side, yet on the other the story 'development' just does not seem to cope with implementing these aspects suitably - neither do including Caine most of the actors, who often enough appear slightly misplaced (for the role of Carter that unluckily does Not apply in the good sense of him as a resolute tough intruder in the northern criminal milieu..) and awkward, which adds to the artificial feeling of the storyline and Carter pulling (shagging and slaying) his mission through. At this point I do not want to vent extensively on some of the conflict scenes, especially around the final, because to me their pathetic setting and acting are too obvious a flaw.After all there are just too many things that do not work together. I left this film behind feeling that it was too half-heartedly conceptualised/made and undeliberately empty to really be that respectively quite overrated top classic some consider it to be.