7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
After his brother's suspicious death, coldblooded gangster Jack Carter returns to his hometown of Newcastle to investigate and exact vengeance.
Starring: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, John Osborne, Tony BeckleyDrama | 100% |
Crime | 47% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono (Spain)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
DTS-HD MA: 1089 kbps
English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There have been three film adaptations of British author Ted Lewis' 1970 novel, Jack's Return Home. The first and still the best was released the following year under the title Get Carter. The debut feature of director Mike Hodges (who would later make Flash Gordon and Croupier , among others) and a notable departure for star Michael Caine, the film has rightly come to be considered a landmark in British cinema, the first authentic screen depiction of the British underworld, which had previously been treated as fodder for comedy. Both Hodges and Caine wanted to do for the British canon what films like Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and Scarface had done for America. By and large, they succeeded. Later British crime films like The Long Good Friday, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Bank Job all owe a debt to Get Carter. Caine was especially keen to play the revenge-seeking title character, because Jack Carter felt familiar. Having grown up in one of London's poor districts, Caine knew gangsters, and many of his contemporaries later turned to crime. Just as Lewis had captured the seedy hangouts and murky alliances of the character's environment, Caine understood his view of the world, and he expressed it on screen with a quiet intensity that, by the end of Get Carter, builds to a kind of obsessive rapture.
Hodges recruited German cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzsky to shoot Get Carter because of the DP's background in documentary filmmaking. Hodges wanted to shoot in real locations as much as possible, and Suschitzsky's experience working with available light was valuable for this approach. Get Carter has always had a gritty, realistic appearance, and it will never be a glossy image. I have no information on what source was used for Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, but those who like to see film grain in their image will not be disappointed. There is grain aplenty here, although the screencaps do not fully convey the extent to which the grain moves in film-like patterns to convey detail within the image. Given the shooting conditions and the vintage of the film, Warner has delivered a remarkably good image, with significant fine detail in the period clothing and the various Newcastle locations, nearly all of which have since been demolished and redeveloped. The color palette is muted and dull, which is consistent both with the mood and the local weather. Black levels and contrast are appropriately set, and if there has been any digital scrubbing or sharpening, it was not evident to my eye when the image was in motion. Warner has placed the 112-minute film on a BD-25, with minimal extras. The result is an average bitrate of 21.96 Mbps, which is certainly better than some of Warner's efforts but is still on the low side for a consistently grainy film, regardless of the amount of activity in individual scenes. Still, the studio seems to have gotten away with it, which is perhaps a testament to the increasing efficiency of video compression codecs.
Get Carter's original mono soundtrack is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 1.0. The most important element of the mix is the signature theme by Roy Budd (Soldier Blue), which sounds quite good, despite the track's somewhat limited dynamic range. The dialogue sounded perfectly clear to my ear, but for others the fear of the original American distributors may be justified, i.e., that the accents may be too thick, in which case there are subtitles. The sound effects for locales such as pubs, racetracks and the Kinnear mansion have all been carefully layered into the track, and even though it's just one channel, there's detail to the sound for anyone who listens closely. (Addendum: I do not have the 2000 DVD of Get Carter for comparison, but reliable sources have reported a peculiarity in the soundtrack. The film's opening scene was dubbed for its American release, apparently out of concern that the Fletchers' accents were too thick for American ears. In addition, their dialogue was rewritten. Hodges discusses this in his commentary, noting that the commentary track contains the dubbed version, which he disliked, while the main track on the DVD contains the original. On the Blu-ray, however, Warner appears to have used the dubbed version for the main track as well. The dubbing is limited to the opening scene.)
Warner released Get Carter on DVD in 2000 with the commentary included here, several trailers, a feature listed as "Notes on Michael Caine" and a music-only track. The DVD was re-released in 2011 as part of the Warner Archive Collection. The Blu-ray includes only the extras listed below.
Whether you're a fan of gangster films, British films or just Michael Caine, Get Carter should be in your library. It routinely shows up on lists voted by British viewers and critics of the best British films of all time. In America, where it initially bombed because of a poorly managed release by MGM (on the bottom half of a double bill with Frank Sinatra in Dirty Dingus Magee), it has steadily gained in reputation, especially after Ted Turner began showing it on television. Warner's Blu-ray presentation is very good, if not perhaps the last word, and is highly recommended.
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4K Restoration
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Filmmakers Signature Series | Remastered
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4K Restoration
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