Get Carter

With its seemingly endless repeats on the TCM Movie channel, there could be a tendency to consider Get Carter as little more than filler material these days. Indeed, it’s well watched and will be familiar to most people with any interest in film. So that it’s easy to get sucked in at any given point with little thought to what has gone before.

Made in 1971 the film has had a 4K restoration by the BFI and a re-release into cinemas. It’s well worth taking the opportunity to watch and appreciate the look and pacing of the film from beginning to end, on a big screen.

The basic story is fairly straightforward with London based gangster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) returning to his hometown Newcastle to his brother Frank’s funeral. While there he plans do some digging around the circumstances of his death, despite warnings against this from his bosses to leave well alone.

Ignoring them, he travels up to find that word has got around that he’s there and the local villains are ready. His investigations begin to trouble both London and Newcastle villains, who want him out of there.

Along the way he reacquaints himself with some characters from his past including the shifty Eric (Ian Hendry) now working for crime boss Cyril Kinnear (John Osborne), while london based thugs Con and Peter (George Sewell and Tony Beckley respectively) turn up to take him back. Blended into this and complicating matters are his niece, his girlfriend, landlady and Frank’s mistress.

Written and directed by Mike Hodges from the start there’s little attempt to portray Jack as anything other than a nasty piece of work. With Caine at the top of his game Jack Carter is totally amoral, or rather abides by his own code. A smart, ruthless, pill popping psychopath who’ll use anyone and anything to get what he wants without a seconds thought as Alun Armstrong and Bryan Moseley discover.

Caine is the lead but there isn’t a single weakness in the casting in what is one of the most powerful and bleakest gangster films ever made. That is in part to the late 60’s, early 70’s Newcastle backdrop of coal heaps, dingy pubs and clubs, that with the terraced houses and grey seas, add a harshness that is stark in this new 4K restoration. Then there’s the people; the stress of life caught by Hodges when he focuses in on the grizzled faces of drinkers in the bars. All building towards the brutality of the final act.

Roy Budd’s score is integral from the ambulatory jazz beats of the main theme, at odds with the grimness of the tale, though complementing the perfect choice and placement of songs interspersed throughout the film.

Get Carter is a masterpiece of British and world cinema and still uncomfortable viewing with the nature of the job attitude to violence and its treatment of women. It says something that even after all these years it still garners an 18 certificate.

Get Carter is re-released in cinemas UK-wide on 27 May, followed by BFI UHD/Blu-ray release on 25 July.