I believe when I reviewed another Mike Hodges movie (the unspeakably dreary I'll Sleep When I'm Dead), I wondered how the same guy who directed the excellent Get Carter could have directed that pile of excrement. Well, I lied. I hadn't seen Get Carter. In my memory, I think I had mistaken it for another classic Michael Caine thriller, The Ipcress File (a great movie…I'm lying again, I haven't seen that either). I'm relieved that for once a movie lives up to its reputation. Michael Caine plays Jack Carter, a feared member of an organized crime gang who travels to London to attend his brother's funeral. He's certain his brother has been murdered by a rival gang and proceeds to punch, fuck, cut, bludgeon, and shoot his way across the city in search of the person or persons responsible. Caine grabs this part by the balls, he is magnetic and terrifying. Hodges manages to blend action, violence, drama, and comedy effortlessly. There is much texture and sense of place, you feel like you're in London while watching this. This also isn't filmed in a "hip" fashion, and therefore seems to have aged very well. The film has an ease to it, it doesn't try to impress…it just does.
Just for your edification, Michael Caine is in fact NOT looking for the killer(s) of his brother, but he is looking for whomever got his niece into child pornography.
ReplyDeleteYou ARE correct in that that is what he is doing at the beginning of the movie, but after the midway point when he's watching the homemade porno on a screen at the chick's house, he realizes his niece )his brother's daughter) has been introduced to the world of child pornography. Michael Caine even cries while watching. The REST of the movie is his search for answers about that question. At that point, he "could care less" about who killed his brother. Now, Michael is doing some killing of his own.
On a completely different subject: I am glad to see you're still publishing this blog.