Review of Get Carter

Introduction

If there’s one thing Sylvester Stallone can do it’s look tough. He’s not exactly puny and with a face that looks like it’s seen 10 rounds with Mike Tyson he pulls it off perfectly so when it came to remaking the classic 1971 Michael Caine movie Get Carter he must have been the natural choice.

I say classic but openly admit to not having seen the original. I’m not one for the older movies to be honest, love is blind and so is nostalgia, however I thought I’d give the remake a bash after having gone far too long without any region 1 purchases.

The story is not a complicated one. Stallone is Jack Carter, a heavy from Las Vegas who earns a living “reminding” people of debts. When his brother dies in a drink drive accident he returns to his home town to find out what really happened. This movie opened in October last year in the states, receiving very poor reviews and even worse box office takings. Looking about I can’t even find a UK cinema release date for this movie which, considering the star, surprised me somewhat.

Were the critics right for once?

Video

Seeing a DVD release only 5 months after it’s cinema release you would expect a high quality transfer and that is exactly what you get. It’s a letterboxed anamorphic disc that is sharp and well detailed throughout.

The only problem I had with the visuals was the style used to film certain scenes. In several scenes (mainly the action ones and the “trying to look mean and moody” scenes) every few seconds the film is speeded up so it often appears to jump. I suppose it’s some sort of attempt at being arty farty or something but whatever it is it`s bloody annoying.

Audio

The audio is also top notch. The gunshots are loud and fill the room as do the screeching of car tyres as they tear round the corners. The sound effects are backed up by what can best be described as a retro homage to the late sixties/early seventies which annoys to start with but I found myself gradually warming to it. The music is, of course, a blatant copy of the original’s score and can only really be seen as an attempt to anchor this release to the original to be perfectly honest, it’s a shame they didn’t go for more originality in this update.

Features

Here we get an insightful feature length commentary from Director Stephen Kay, 7 deleted scenes (including the original ending) , 2 theatrical trailers (including one for the original movie) and cast/crew bios. The deleted scenes are interesting in that they reveal some more about the actual character of Carter making it a shame that they were left out. The original trailer made me chuckle, seeing Michael Caine roughing people up just isn’t convincing nowadays and every time he opened his mouth I kept expecting to hear “You`re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”. Perhaps I should watch more Michael Caine movies to get a broader appreciation of his work :).

Conclusion

This movie is a bit of a missed opportunity. The anchors back to the past version weigh too heavily on this movie. The actual story itself doesn’t start plausibly at all with Carter`s very early conclusion that his brother was murdered being pulled completely from thin air.

Stallone is perfect in this part as, mentioned earlier, he has the tough guy look down perfect. Sly has also proved that he is a very capable actor as well but, unfortunately, he isn’t used to the fullest. This is my main problem with the film, the character of Jack Carter is never really fleshed out. There are occasions where you start to get glimpses of the real person and his emotions and at these points the film starts to lift itself up but these moments are too few and far between to sustain the interest that this movie could have had. Rachael Leigh Cook plays the part of Carters niece and is the main catalyst for Stallone’s more emotional scenes and the movie would have benefited from seeing more of this relationship.

There are several bad guys but none of them are the least bit memorable. Even Mikey Rourke fails to hit the spot and quite what Alan Cumming is doing in this movie is anybody’s guess. It’s a shame also that action scenes and car chases are equally forgettable, made all the harder to follow by the afore mentioned speeding up of the film every 10 seconds or so.

Even though I would have liked this movie to have tried to be more original and to attempt to stand on it’s own two feet it was nice to see Michael Caine in the movie as the employer of Carter’s brother. Despite not being sold on his tough guys routines earlier in his career Caine is a damn fine actor and the movie definitely benefits from his presence.

So to summarise this is a great quality DVD with a reasonable selection of extras but the question mark is whether you’ll like the movie. Had they focused more on the personality of Carter, perhaps through the reintroduction of the deleted scenes and some extra length to some of the existing emotional scenes, this could have been so much better. It’s pretty slow paced with not many surprises but I have to say I enjoyed it and Stallone is as watchable as always.