Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Get Carter Blu-ray Movie Review

Jack's Back

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 22, 2014

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.

Jack Carter (Caine) is an enforcer for two London mobsters, the Fletcher brothers, Gerald and Sid (Terence Rigby and John Bindon), who are probably modeled on the infamous Krays. In the opening scene, he sits with the Fletchers and Gerald's girlfriend, Anna (Britt Ekland), as they watch black-and-white porno slides. Anyone who notices a palpable tension between Jack and Anna is probably onto something. The Fletchers are telling Jack not to go to Newcastle, his home town in the north, but Jack is adamant. He is attending his brother's funeral, and he wants to investigate the circumstances, because he doesn't accept the police conclusion that the death was accidental.

Jack Carter's odyssey through the backstreets and dirty underground of the hometown he abandoned long ago follows a twisted and often confusing path. Hodges, who also wrote the screenplay, omitted substantial parts of the novel that explained who is who and provides Jack with backstory. He did not want to burden his film with chunks of exposition explaining old rivalries, who works for whom or how each illegal business operates. Hodges is far more interested in watching Carter's fearless indifference to consequences as he calmly pushes his way in and out of bars, clubs and private homes filled with men who want him to leave well enough alone and take the next train back to London. You didn't even like your brother, people keep telling him. Why do you care what happened? They haven't yet grasped that family is one of the few values (perhaps the only one) that Jack Carter respects. Touch his family, and he'll kill you.

The only family now left for Carter is his brother's daughter, Doreen (Petra Markham), a simple soul to whom Jack gives money and the generic advice, "don't trust boys". Doreen's mother is long gone, and Jack's brother rented a part-time mistress named Margaret (Dorothy White), who doesn't have much to say. The local crime boss, Cyril Kinnear (John Osborne), with whom the Fletchers do business, is polite but coy, and his "chauffeur", Eric Paice (Ian Hendry), an old acquaintance of Jack's, is positively hostile. A big-time businessman who owns most of the area's arcades, Cliff Brumby, first tries to get Jack to leave town, then tells him Kinnear had his brother killed and offers him £5000 to kill Kinnear, who is trying to muscle in on Brumby's business. Jack smells a setup, but is no closer to finding the truth. He also can't help but notice that another old acquaintance, Albert Swift (Glynn Edwards), keeps avoiding him. Adding an extra challenge to Jack's search is the arrival of two thugs sent by the Fletchers to expedite Jack's return to London.

Jack does eventually unravel the mystery, but the price is high and so is the body count. One of the hallmarks of the typical American crime film is the presence of a moral center. In the classics from Warner's golden age, crime never paid and the forces of law and order generally prevailed. Later, with the rise of the anti-hero, a criminal who escaped the law was usually shown to have a code of honor; he resorted to violence with good cause and only when there was no other choice. Get Carter is notable for its utter lack of any concession to morality. It offers neither justification nor excuse for Jack Carter's ruthless amorality or for the viciousness of those arrayed against him. They simply are who they are. If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your distance.

Get Carter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.)

Get Carter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

• Commentary with Actor Michael Caine, Director Mike Hodges and Cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitsky: The track is the product of three separate interviews cut together. Hodges has the most air time, followed by Caine, with Suschitsky third. Hodges discusses all aspects of the production, with particular focus on the actors' approaches to their parts—and not just Caine, but many of the supporting roles. He is particularly interesting on the friction between Ian Hendry, who played Eric Paice, and Caine, which Hodges believes translated to the screen, since their characters despise each other. Caine discusses his background and interest in the part, as well as the reaction of old friends "from the neighborhood" to the film; he also provides insight into his acting technique. Suschitsky describes his lighting and photographic strategies.



• Trailers (480i; 1.78:1): Only one of these is literally a "trailer". The "music trailer" is more like a music video, which shows composer Roy Budd playing the theme. The "Michael Caine trailer" is a short introduction by Caine to a screening for the citizens of Newcastle.
• Music Trailer (3:41)
• International Trailer (2:44)
• Michael Caine Trailer (0:48)

Get Carter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.