A disclaimer to begin with. I do take kindly to Michael Caine's movies from his younger days at least. Get Carter is no exception. Set against the bleak semi-urban backdrop of Northern England, the film tackles violence and crime in an intense manner.With no lighthearted moments , the movie can get to you with its dark tone , all the more magnified by the dreary climatic conditions of the locations.Caine does well as the tough , no-nonsense London gangster . The actions scenes on many occasions exude disdain . Though the story by itself is not very intriguing , the direction is superb and makes for a good watch. However, for the plot, the movie may seem a tad stretched , which can be dissuasive at times.Compared to some other movies Caine has starred in including a few Harry Palmer flicks and Play Dirty, the plot is rather straightforward . Some actors do not act out their roles well and some sequences are a little roughly cut. However, the movie is a far better exposition of a revenge drama than anything of late. On the whole the movie is superb and entertaining.

Taking an American perspective on this very British film leads me to several observations. First, Michael Caine is terrific as the ice cold killer, seeking revenge for his brother's death. Second, the grim photography is outstanding. Third, the violence is believable and often quite brutal. Now for the bad news. The British accents are very difficult to understand which detracts. I might even go so far as to suggest using English subtitles. The main flaw however is the characters are numerous, undeveloped, and seem to randomly appear and vanish. It is not easy to follow the somewhat complex story line, which along with the language problem. makes "Get Carter" challenging to watch. - MERK

I am somewhat mystified by the reputation of Get Carter as a cult classic. To me, this is a portrait of revenge and the self-destructive effect that it has upon the perpetrator, who basically transmogrifies into his enemy by deigning to conduct himself as he did--and worse. In this case, the angry Carter seeks to avenge his brother's murder, but ends up whacking everyone and his sister, girlfriend, and other random associates along the way. Pretty unsettling and more a statement of the killer's deranged mental state than anything else. Near the end, he was even starting to resemble Henry Lee Lucas a bit."He who lives by the gun dies by the gun" is essentially the moral of this story. Or, if you like: "What goes around comes around," or perhaps "violence breeds violence." There was nothing noble whatsoever in this killing spree. I do aver that Michael Caine did a pretty good job in the role of someone suffering from serious, big-time OCD with a major idée fixe expressed only in the medium of yet more homicide. Too bad he wasn't a poet instead.

For a start, I am only 21 so my perception of what was and is thought to be acceptable good film making might in some ways have been spoilt by the more recent sorts of films I 'grew up' with, but I was quite disappointed with Get Carter taken as a whole.The prime reason for me for giving this film a go lately was the recommendation of its plain striking atmosphere and given my personal fascination for the Tyneside area I definitely loved the 'authentic' setting of the scenery. It certainly is the thing I liked most about this work, but unfortunately that is almost it. Apart from this the film has some good moments (the very first few cuts of Eklands driving scene...like a couple of other elements this gets exhausting) and the somewhat nihilistic straightness and turns of the plot, let alone the congenial ending, are one thing I could highly enjoy on one side, yet on the other the story 'development' just does not seem to cope with implementing these aspects suitably - neither do including Caine most of the actors, who often enough appear slightly misplaced (for the role of Carter that unluckily does Not apply in the good sense of him as a resolute tough intruder in the northern criminal milieu..) and awkward, which adds to the artificial feeling of the storyline and Carter pulling (shagging and slaying) his mission through. At this point I do not want to vent extensively on some of the conflict scenes, especially around the final, because to me their pathetic setting and acting are too obvious a flaw.After all there are just too many things that do not work together. I left this film behind feeling that it was too half-heartedly conceptualised/made and undeliberately empty to really be that respectively quite overrated top classic some consider it to be.