Just on the basis of viewing the 1st 2mins of this version of Get Carter, I would never purchase the DVD. I've seen the original (UK) version of it, and this ain't it!

Why were Sid Fletcher's and Geralds' voices overdubbed?!?!?!? God only knows what else was edited and overdubbed!

Charlie Tesoro

One of the great gangsta movies of all time. Puts the new wave of ultra-violent or ultra-derivative London gansta movies to shame. Note: don't watch the remake instead.

Get Carter is one of the best motion pictures of the 1970's and perhaps the greatest British criminal themed film of all time. Michael Caine has never had a better role nor delivered as deceptively intense and deep an acting performance. To propose this when Caine is one of the greatest actors to have lived on the planet is saying a mouthful. Like POINT BLANK (1967) was with the great John Boorman and Lee Marvin co-creating, Mike Hodges and Michael Caine in 1971 created a steely no-apologies masterpiece. The only wonder is that British MGM and American MGM meddling executives at the time allowed the film to be released without destructive compromising cuts for commercialism and what is now called political correctness. The supporting cast is uniformaly dead-on. The perhaps unrecognized co-star of the film is the cold-sobering, gritty, pre-Thatcher English location of Newcastle. Long live Michael Caine and long live the ballsy gentlemen like Jack Carter. Also, for outstanding source material that does Mickey Spillane proud, check out the Jack Carter novels by the late Ted Lewis.

The Bottom Line:

A brutal and harsh movie that makes the most of its decaying Newcastle setting, Get Carter is sometimes aimless but it's anchored by an intense Michael Caine; almost nihilistic in its bleakness, it's quite a movie.

Based on (and adapted for the screen by) Ted Lewis' novel, this is one of the grittest crime/gangster films since John Boorman's POINT BLANK. Like the Marvin character Walker, Caine's Jack Carter is a relentless force, unlike the Marvin character (who walks away in the end and avoids certain death), Carter cannot stop and it leads to his descruction. Revenge is the motive in both stories. For Walker it was betrayal for Carter it is to find an answer. Jack Carter is a hoodlum who works for crime bosses in London who returns to his working class beginnings to find out how his brother died. It moves slowly at first (but that is just Hodges building the mood) but when Jack decides to go after those responsible it moves like a force of nature. Probably Michael Caine's best role as the dope head/enforcer. Forget what you have seen of Caine before, this is Sir Michael as his most primal. Caine's stare can burn holes in the screen. It's a performance that stands alongside Marvin's Walker and Steve McQueen's Doc McCoy in Peckinpah's THE GETAWAY. Also starring a young and sexy Britt Eklund.