La loi du milieu

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.

I saw this together with "The Silencers." The two were roughly contemporary and both played with notions of cool. There is a sort of symmetry here that I think is intrinsic to cool.

It is a symmetry of misogynism. The idea with Dean Martin's thing is probably more familiar to most viewers through Austin Powers. Martin is basically an ugly thug whose fame was based on fantasies about the rat pack. But we are to believe that women — here as automatons with pink bits — automatically adjust to him as god merely through presence. There are gadgets and settings too, and everything emanates from the being of the man. Cinematically speaking, it is Italian storytelling.

Here in Carter we have something else. Its the same pull on values. The man has charm, enough that every woman in his orbit gets seduced and suffers. But the entire dynamic is different. Its the environment here that is the focus, not the man. Unfortunately, this film has not aged well and we have much, much better examples of cool ground out from a gritty machine.

This guy is a genuine thug. To be cool in this mold you cannot be violent. You have to be an observer, one who understands the workings of the machine that surrounds. Small insights into those workings give great advantage. The cinematic expression of that dynamic is not groundbreaking in this film. But it is there, is gritty in a human way and gives a worthy ending as the machine grinds on, another viewer somewhere having gotten some small advantage.

I have not seen the remake, I think. But it is hard to imagine it working as well. This, by the way, was when Caine was real and true. When he understood this business of what I call folded acting, where he could spend some energy being the character, and some being in the character of an actor playing the guy. Two, simultaneous conversations with us, one with us as a watcher.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Michael Caine stars in "Get Carter," a 1971 film co-produced by Caine, who was sick of the parts he was getting. Well, the role of Carter is certainly a terrific part. Ian Hendry and John Osborne also star.

Carter, a London gangster, returns to his home town of Newcastle for his brother's funeral. When he is offered a ticket out of town, his suspicion about his brother's death grows stronger. His investigation leads him to a pornography ring and lots of bad guys.

There's lots of violence in this film as Carter dispenses with anyone who's in his way without even blinking. He's mean as they come. Caine is fantastic, and he's surrounded by effective evil-doers.

There's nudity, too, as well as phone sex. If you like this type of gangster movie, you'll love this. Well-directed by Mike Hodges.

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:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495