Carter, o Vingador

This film has a stunning Michael Caine play cold-blooded gangster Jack Carter on a quest for vengeance. Carter never wavers, he never strays from his path, he is like a surgical instrument that cuts down everything in his way with clinical precision without passion or mercy. If the Terminator were a human character, he would be Carter. Alfred he is not (hint: that's a Batman reference) . One of the best British crime flicks ever. 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

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Jack Carter, the reserved London gangster, travels north to Newcastle, his home town, to find the cause of his brother's death. He's warned by his bosses not to go, but refuses to obey them. We, and he, discover the reasons for the warning, which are intertwined with the details of his brother's fate, and watch Carter's quest for revenge reach its logical conclusion. The underworld life sets a kitschy vision of glamour - music-box decanter sets, flashy bespoke suits, and garishly decorated villas - against the grotty reality of arcade slot machines, pornographic 8mm films, and the claustrophobic grubbiness of Newcastle's industrial tenements. Carter, who prides himself on a style of detached shrewdness, navigates both worlds, until he discovers that they're intertwined, sickeningly. The corruption which provides him his living has tainted his own family. I think the centre of the film is the brilliant moment when Carter sits in bed in the flickering light of a projector, discovering the truth about his world. He weeps, silently, knowing what he must now do. But vengeance is all he knows, and it consumes him.

This story captures with great subtlety the coarse truths about poverty, and crime, which are as true today in Canada and the US as they were forty years ago in England. There's no heroism, no loyalty, no glamour. We feel a kind of sorrowful revulsion at the squalid reality of Carter's world, even as we fear the intensity of his quest for his brother's killers. And we realise we've seen a perfect film of its kind - exceptionally skillful acting, cinematography and editing, bringing to life a taut script. Never again will we fall for the false romanticism of crime.

The movie's an ice-cold exercise in revenge, with a no-nonsense script and a first-rate turn by Caine as the heck-bent avenger. Someone killed his brother and, by golly, they're going to pay along with anyone else who gets in his way. The idea's not new; what's different is that Carter (Caine) has almost no redeeming qualities. He's about as cold blooded as the worst of the gangsters he confronts. Rooting for him is like rooting for a stomach pain over a headache.

Then too, Caine's ice-blue eyes are put to good use in sizing up his targets. And catch that gear shifting in the fast car timed to coincide with Carter's fast action on the bed. At last the subtext of all those sleek auto advertisements is revealed, this time in high octane. I just wish we saw more of Ms. Ekland, both literally and especially figuratively. And if that's not enough, catch that great ending. It's a marvel of imaginative staging and a perfect cap to what's gone before. Anyway, the movie reminds me of a polished piece of glass-- just about as cold and shiny and needing no depth. I couldn't stop looking at it.

British gangster classic starring Michael Caine as the eminently quotable, ultimately tough Jack Carter

Hard to believe that a major studio felt the need to remake this British gangster classic, which ranks up there with the likes of The Long Good Friday as one of the finest home grown films of the past 30 years.

Caine is the gangster who goes to Newcastle for his brother's funeral and begins to suspect his death was no accident; cue edgy thrills and violence as he exacts revenge on the folks he believes responsible.

Caine, as in the majority of his signature roles, is superbly armed with a set of eminently quotable one-liners ("You're a big man, but you're out of shape" tops the bill this time), and as emotionally detached and violently ruthless as Point Blank's similarly vengeful Lee Marvin, while director Hodges paints a gritty, bleak picture of the gangster underworld.

Soap fans will be equally intrigued to see Coronation Street's Alf Roberts (aka Bryan Moseley) being tossed off a roof.

Jack Carter is not someone you'd usually want to take home to your mother. He's a career criminal, a gangster in London whose brother was in Newcastle (his hometown) when he found out that he died under mysterious circumstances. Already we're on his side, since it was obviously not a typical drunk-driving accident that caused Frank Carter's death, and we want to see revenge and/or justice. But Jack Carter, that man with a near-permanent dour look on his face and a tendency to get violent, isn't a typical protagonist. He's something of an anti-hero, a nasty one at that, who is a perpetual womanizer (in one oddly hot scene he talks with a direct tone on the phone with a gangster's moll to take off her clothes and masturbate), and will hurt anyone he needs to, sometimes to extreme lengths, to get what he needs to know.

Certainly he's surrounded in a murky enough criminal environment. The Newcastle of 'Get Carter' is a place with sleazy gangsters betting big bucks and nightclubs with of-the-period music, and women running hotels with weathered looks on their faces. It's here that Carter goes on his investigation, like a hard-boiled detective without mercy. And as he digs deeper into what is at the heart of the mystery- that Frank Carter wasn't a saint, but got duped by the criminal elements and in a pornographic film that brings Jack to tears of rage- it becomes clear he'll have to knock a few heads, and shoot when he must... which is a lot.

Carter might be more unlikable if not for the star in the role. Michael Caine has a look to him in this film that recalls Alain Delon in the Jean-Pierre Melville pictures, specifically Le Samourai. Nothing can really flinch this guy, unless it's something that he actually cares about. But Caine gives humanity to a character that is on the move, almost always, and has to be on his toes when around unsavory characters. I loved seeing how Caine can just be great at looking around a room or a situation or looking over a person, and how when he gets angry, boy you better get out (even if, or sometimes especially because, you're a woman not dishing on what needs to be told). Caine helps a film that needs that star quality- other actors like John Osbourne as the Big Gangster Kinnear and Ian Hendry as Eric do well enough if only good performances- and where the film digs into some subversive, dark terrain, we have to keep watching it to see how Caine can pull it off.

Another perk for Hodges is how he deals with the action. Often his film will feel a little slow-going (never too boring, but of a time period, the 70's, when a story could take a little more time in establishing mood), but when action and violence come up it's genuinely shocking and thrilling. We expect to get some satisfaction seeing Carter getting his payback at the criminals, but here there's a dastardly twist as to how just rotten Carter can be with these figures. He goes to their level, and Hodges lets us go along for the wicked neo-noir ride. Some may find it too dark, or just a little too unrelentingly bleak with what Carter finds and how he gets his revenge. But there's the bittersweet part to it as well, especially in the last act, that makes it worthwhile.