London gangster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) returns to his Northern industrial hometown to find out the truth about the supposed accidental death of his straight brother Frank. His London bosses don't want him to make a mess by crossing their local partners, but once pointed in the direction he will go, Jack isn't somebody who can be dissuaded by anything.
Get Carter is a rather very cynical gangster/revenge flick from the bizarre filmography of Mike Hodges, and probably the director's best one at that. Influenced by film noir, John Boorman's Point Blank and the painful ugliness of its setting, Caine's Carter walks through the film as someone who does not give a shit about himself anymore; he hasn't, as his gaze tells us, for a long time. When the few things he actually cares about are destroyed, he answers with the only things he truly understands: violence of the very casual kind and a rage he neatly holds in its cage until the opportune moment to let it out has come.
Hodges seems to find a certain delight in showing us some of the most consequent and least moral acts of vengeance that can be found on film, all too fitting for the city where they take place, itself an act of architectural violence.
A slight leavening of the blackest of humor only emphasizes the meanness and hopelessness of the film. I'm not sure if hopelessness is even a fitting word for the world Get Carter creates. Hopelessness implies at least the existence of hope - Hodges is not that optimistic here.
Another thing I found rather remarkable was the fact that the film avoids the temptation to let the viewer identify with its protagonist - we're there to gaze into the abyss, not become it.
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