Get Carter
Directed by: Stephen T. Kay
Written by: Ted Lewis, David McKenna
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine

Sly Stallone is the man. Or at least he thinks he is. And that’s what makes him so fun to watch on screen. Let’s be honest, this movie looked pretty dumb, but who could resist when the commercials had Stallone delivering such great lines as “My name is Jack Carter and you don’t want to know me.”? I know I couldn’t.

It was evident from the trailers that this movie was going to try really hard to be flashy and rugged and “hip”. To a certain extent, I liked some of the camera work and the cool lighting in this movie. The problem was just that this was not the right movie to get all artsy with. The interesting camera angles and effects just made the movie seem really melodramatic. The pulsating techno soundtrack also made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. I guess that probably makes me sound like a big film snob, but in all seriousness, it was pure cheese.

Before we go any further, I suppose a summary of the basic storyline is an order. Sylvester Stallone does indeed play the role of Mr. Jack Carter, a Vegas hitman who, upon finding out that his younger brother has passed away, becomes suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his death. But of course, as we all know, Jack is the bad brother who “doesn’t fix things, he breaks them”.

So basically, from that point on, Jack Carter embarks on a quest to figure out how his brother died, and it’s a haphazard journey zig zagging back and forth across his old stomping grounds, as he roughs up person after person looking for answers.

The movie is somewhat slow moving at first. They wanted to build up the suspense and then hit you with a shocking revelation near the end. In order for this to work, however, the revelation has to be worth the wait, and in this case the big revelation just didn’t seem like it was worth the build up. But of course, it does turn out to be shocking enough for Sly to cry over. (First Arnold cries in End of Days, now this?? What’s this world coming to?!)

When the action picks up, we are treated to a few car chase scenes which are totally confusing and disorienting. Someone did a pretty poor editing job here.

Get Carter is an amusing movie, at least in the sense that Stallone is pretty much god. (And his initials are J.C., a cheesy detail that begs for attention everytime Carter dons his personalized cufflinks…) He is basically unstoppable, and goes through most of the movie kicking everyone’s ass without much of a challenge. Not that he didn’t look the part – he is pretty damn huge in this movie. It makes me wonder what kind of steroids he’s pumping nowadays.

Clearly, the best and worst thing about the movie is Stallone’s acting. He’s such a bad actor, and he has some really lame one-liners, which he succeeds in delivering with a complete and utter lack of emotion. It’s great to see all his macho tough guy lines delivered with a low, throaty drawl, especially when his character is actually trying to do something human, such as acquaint himself with his niece over coffee. Most of the time he just looks and sounds like a big oaf. He tries to be cute, but he has no sense of timing, and any of his little jokes just fall flat on their face.

One other character who was laughable in this movie was the spineless computer nerd guy, played by Alan Cumming, who I believe also played Boris in Goldeneye. So stereotypical, yet so perfect!

An interesting thing that I found out only after I saw the movie is that this is a remake of a movie from the 70’s. Perhaps this explains why they went overboard trying to make the movie seem so modern and trendy. Strangely enough, Michael Caine actually plays the lead role of Jack Carter in the original, and he makes an appearance as a smaller character in this new version of the movie.

Anyways, what it comes down to is the fact that this new version of Get Carter is a pretty bad movie. It’s the kind of thing I can laugh about, until I realize that I spent 10 bucks to see it. Ouch. That kind of puts things in perspective. — Sean

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