Everyone has at least one. You watch a film and all the way through you think to yourself, "My God, is this shit". You get to the end and you walk away but you keep thinking about it, and at some point you watch it again. And again. And again, and all the while you're trying your best to figure out what keeps bringing you back to it. Why do you love this rotten thing so much?
We are none of us free from sin. Confess, and be united in your bearing of awful taste.
(There's a Guilty Pleasure Movies thread here but for the most part it's just folks mentioning the titles they like. This is meant to be a thread not just identifying such films, but discussing why they're bad and why you love them anyway.)
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The British 1971 film Get Carter is a revenge film, but it is also deconstruction of the gangster archetype through the application of unrepentant violence. Michael Caine plays the protagonist, Jack Carter, a London gangster who came up in the underworld of Newcastle and left his family behind, including brother Frank, to seek greater fortune further south. The film opens with Carter returning to Newcastle after hearing of his brother's death in a drunk-driving accident.
Between familial knowledge and scoundrel savvy Carter suspects foul play and mounts his own investigation. What follows is 109 minutes of thinly-veiled threats, neck-deep immersion into a dozen kinds of iniquity, and Jack dispatching anyone involved in his brother's death as well as those sent by his London employers to retrieve him. Carter is the epitome of Lack of Nonsense. He slaps the shit out of a man who isn't even involved at that point just for jabbing a finger in his chest. Rude motherfucker.
The bloodshed goes up to even the final minute, culminating in an ending so bleak you'd wonder whether it ought to have been filmed in Scandinavia instead. The film is less a character study and more an exploration of archetype, extending out the notion of the Vengeful Man to the end point, wherein justice is so brutal that it is no longer noble but exists only for its own sake. It makes no further commentary on this, either, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions as to whether Carter was justified.
Oh, and in the event you didn't watch the first clip, do that. The music is fantastic.
Now, I tell you all of that not because Get Carter is one of my most beloved shitty films. The British Get Carter is great, so much so that several publications list it as one of the greatest crime films of all time. The 2000 American remake however, is another story.
GC2k stars Sylvester Stallone as Jack Carter, a Las Vegas enforcer/loan shark collector/man who punches things who came up in the underworld of Seattle (???????????????) and left his family behind, including brother Ritchie, sister-in-law Gloria and niece Doreen to seek greater fortune further southwest. The film opens with a quote about how crappy man is that the screenwriter thought sounded cool as Carter proceeds to chase down a man and then beat him up alongside John C. McGinley so we know that he (Carter), who is built like a brick shithouse, is tough. Against the advice of his colleague Dr. Cox, Carter hops a train to return to Seattle to attend the funeral of his brother, recently killed in a drunk-driving accident, whom he believes met with foul play.
If this is sounding familiar, then good. You've been paying attention so far.
The American film follows the original in terms of plot and cast very closely. All the same major players and plot points are present. Where it falls down is in its direction and its characters.
The original Get Carter was made by filmmakers with experience in documentaries, and who either studied the British underworld or were familiar with it by association with actual members. The result is a gritty, no-frills portrayal of the events of the story; while there are exciting moments they are presented in a very factual, realistic way. By contrast GC2k tries to incorporate some of the production elements common of other grittier action films of its time. Blue filters are omnipresent. Overexposure, flashes of light and sudden jumps in speed of shots are used to jarring effect to represent the passage of time or dramatic recollections. At one point while Carter is experiencing a particularly emotional moment following a devastating revelation while sitting in a car in the middle of a road, the shot turns upside down.
Do you geddit, audience?!
Suffice to say the cinematography is...interesting, and hardly used to great effect. If the director wanted to portray Carter as a man driven to the fringes of stability over the loss of his brother and his desire for revenge, that would've made an interesting story and a take on the original that I'd have liked to see, but it could have been done better with a different portrayal of the character rather than quick cuts to different angles of closeups of Stallone's mug punctuated by lens flares.
Which brings me to my next point: Stallone as Carter.
Sly Stallone is Sly Stallone. Much like many action film leading men, you know what you're going to get out of him. Fair's fair. But, knowing that, you should be prepared to use him for the right job, and the right job is not talking a young woman through recalling her violent rape. Nor is it echoing some of Caine's most iconic lines from the original, especially when it is being done to Caine himself, who plays a strange minor-and-yet-still-major role as a callback. Stallone is best used when intimidating people and hitting things, which he does more than his share of. Unfortunately, while Caine is happy to rough people up in GC, much of the necessary brutality goes well beyond that, and Stallone's actions in GC2k make him look like a choirboy in comparison. In multiple instances he is shown to be reluctant to kill, even determined not to do so, and I can't help but think that, despite both films earned an R rating for the US, someone (or someones) just didn't feel right with Sly portraying an unabashed murderer. Him shooting the mastermind in the back in the final five minutes of the film still doesn't put him nearly on the same level as Caine's Carter.
This all might make me sound like a bloodthirsty lunatic, but I appreciate violence in media where it's warranted, and where is it warranted more than when a character is avenging their own blood? The violence in GC is part of the point; it's central to showing the viewer Carter's depth of character in his desire for justice. Caine's Carter kills a female conspirator in the death of Frank with a lethal injection and dumps her body at the home of another. He is harder than a coffin nail. Stallone punching Mickey Rourke until he's a bloody mess on the floor, while visceral, just doesn't have nearly the same oomph.
So we've got an American remake of a quintessential revenge film with jarring cinematography, a lead actor with far less gravitas and a reimagining of the protagonist who is milquetoast by comparison. Why the fuck do I like this piece of shit?
For starters, the supporting cast is actually good. John C. McGinley steals every single scene he's in. I don't even care that he's the same persona in nearly everything. The man has perfected goofy-intense to a honed edge. He could read the phone book and I'd be entertained. Miranda Richardson as Gloria, Ritchie's widow, is underused. I'd have liked to have had one or two more quiet scenes with her doing something other than reminding Carter what a shithead he is. Rachael Leigh Cook does nearly all the legwork in her scenes as Doreen bonding with Carter. Alan Cumming is pitch fucking perfect as a sniveling tech mogul. I almost think the casting supervisors knew that Stallone and Caine were a done deal and so they immediately went to work getting people who they knew could shoulder the rest of the roles.
Secondly, there's a superficial moodiness that just does it for me in the remake. Newcastle is not a pretty place in the original and from what I understand about its history and climate Seattle makes for a pretty decent American analogue, or at least one that producers would expect average American audiences to recognize. Some place in the American rust belt might've fit better thematically but hardly anyone sets stories there unless they're about those places. GC2k is dark, and rainy, and overcast. All. The fucking. Time. Is this hackneyed for the kind of film it is? Yes. Do I love it anyway for that? Also yes.
Finally, the music is perfect in its own right. Tyler Bates is no Roy Budd. Fine. And maybe you hated the late-90s/early-2000s film trend of electronic music being everywhere, but Bates never went with the obvious and still managed to pick out some bangers. This film is solely responsible for my discovery of Mint Royale, a fact that would make me cherish it alone, but the opening features Bates' take on the main title theme, "Carter Takes A Train", which I rank right up beside things like "Blade Runner Blues" on my list of great modern film music.
I know it's shit. It's shit even when you don't hold it up beside the original. Stallone can barely emote in it past "sorta angry" or "almost crying but not quite". The body count is in the single digits. McGinley does somehow not kill Carter halfway through the film and take over. But damn if I don't own Get Carter (2000) in three different formats anyway.
It's shit. But it's my kind of shit.
We are none of us free from sin. Confess, and be united in your bearing of awful taste.
(There's a Guilty Pleasure Movies thread here but for the most part it's just folks mentioning the titles they like. This is meant to be a thread not just identifying such films, but discussing why they're bad and why you love them anyway.)
===
The British 1971 film Get Carter is a revenge film, but it is also deconstruction of the gangster archetype through the application of unrepentant violence. Michael Caine plays the protagonist, Jack Carter, a London gangster who came up in the underworld of Newcastle and left his family behind, including brother Frank, to seek greater fortune further south. The film opens with Carter returning to Newcastle after hearing of his brother's death in a drunk-driving accident.
Between familial knowledge and scoundrel savvy Carter suspects foul play and mounts his own investigation. What follows is 109 minutes of thinly-veiled threats, neck-deep immersion into a dozen kinds of iniquity, and Jack dispatching anyone involved in his brother's death as well as those sent by his London employers to retrieve him. Carter is the epitome of Lack of Nonsense. He slaps the shit out of a man who isn't even involved at that point just for jabbing a finger in his chest. Rude motherfucker.
The bloodshed goes up to even the final minute, culminating in an ending so bleak you'd wonder whether it ought to have been filmed in Scandinavia instead. The film is less a character study and more an exploration of archetype, extending out the notion of the Vengeful Man to the end point, wherein justice is so brutal that it is no longer noble but exists only for its own sake. It makes no further commentary on this, either, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions as to whether Carter was justified.
Oh, and in the event you didn't watch the first clip, do that. The music is fantastic.
Now, I tell you all of that not because Get Carter is one of my most beloved shitty films. The British Get Carter is great, so much so that several publications list it as one of the greatest crime films of all time. The 2000 American remake however, is another story.
GC2k stars Sylvester Stallone as Jack Carter, a Las Vegas enforcer/loan shark collector/man who punches things who came up in the underworld of Seattle (???????????????) and left his family behind, including brother Ritchie, sister-in-law Gloria and niece Doreen to seek greater fortune further southwest. The film opens with a quote about how crappy man is that the screenwriter thought sounded cool as Carter proceeds to chase down a man and then beat him up alongside John C. McGinley so we know that he (Carter), who is built like a brick shithouse, is tough. Against the advice of his colleague Dr. Cox, Carter hops a train to return to Seattle to attend the funeral of his brother, recently killed in a drunk-driving accident, whom he believes met with foul play.
If this is sounding familiar, then good. You've been paying attention so far.
The American film follows the original in terms of plot and cast very closely. All the same major players and plot points are present. Where it falls down is in its direction and its characters.
The original Get Carter was made by filmmakers with experience in documentaries, and who either studied the British underworld or were familiar with it by association with actual members. The result is a gritty, no-frills portrayal of the events of the story; while there are exciting moments they are presented in a very factual, realistic way. By contrast GC2k tries to incorporate some of the production elements common of other grittier action films of its time. Blue filters are omnipresent. Overexposure, flashes of light and sudden jumps in speed of shots are used to jarring effect to represent the passage of time or dramatic recollections. At one point while Carter is experiencing a particularly emotional moment following a devastating revelation while sitting in a car in the middle of a road, the shot turns upside down.
Do you geddit, audience?!
Suffice to say the cinematography is...interesting, and hardly used to great effect. If the director wanted to portray Carter as a man driven to the fringes of stability over the loss of his brother and his desire for revenge, that would've made an interesting story and a take on the original that I'd have liked to see, but it could have been done better with a different portrayal of the character rather than quick cuts to different angles of closeups of Stallone's mug punctuated by lens flares.
Which brings me to my next point: Stallone as Carter.
Sly Stallone is Sly Stallone. Much like many action film leading men, you know what you're going to get out of him. Fair's fair. But, knowing that, you should be prepared to use him for the right job, and the right job is not talking a young woman through recalling her violent rape. Nor is it echoing some of Caine's most iconic lines from the original, especially when it is being done to Caine himself, who plays a strange minor-and-yet-still-major role as a callback. Stallone is best used when intimidating people and hitting things, which he does more than his share of. Unfortunately, while Caine is happy to rough people up in GC, much of the necessary brutality goes well beyond that, and Stallone's actions in GC2k make him look like a choirboy in comparison. In multiple instances he is shown to be reluctant to kill, even determined not to do so, and I can't help but think that, despite both films earned an R rating for the US, someone (or someones) just didn't feel right with Sly portraying an unabashed murderer. Him shooting the mastermind in the back in the final five minutes of the film still doesn't put him nearly on the same level as Caine's Carter.
This all might make me sound like a bloodthirsty lunatic, but I appreciate violence in media where it's warranted, and where is it warranted more than when a character is avenging their own blood? The violence in GC is part of the point; it's central to showing the viewer Carter's depth of character in his desire for justice. Caine's Carter kills a female conspirator in the death of Frank with a lethal injection and dumps her body at the home of another. He is harder than a coffin nail. Stallone punching Mickey Rourke until he's a bloody mess on the floor, while visceral, just doesn't have nearly the same oomph.
So we've got an American remake of a quintessential revenge film with jarring cinematography, a lead actor with far less gravitas and a reimagining of the protagonist who is milquetoast by comparison. Why the fuck do I like this piece of shit?
For starters, the supporting cast is actually good. John C. McGinley steals every single scene he's in. I don't even care that he's the same persona in nearly everything. The man has perfected goofy-intense to a honed edge. He could read the phone book and I'd be entertained. Miranda Richardson as Gloria, Ritchie's widow, is underused. I'd have liked to have had one or two more quiet scenes with her doing something other than reminding Carter what a shithead he is. Rachael Leigh Cook does nearly all the legwork in her scenes as Doreen bonding with Carter. Alan Cumming is pitch fucking perfect as a sniveling tech mogul. I almost think the casting supervisors knew that Stallone and Caine were a done deal and so they immediately went to work getting people who they knew could shoulder the rest of the roles.
Secondly, there's a superficial moodiness that just does it for me in the remake. Newcastle is not a pretty place in the original and from what I understand about its history and climate Seattle makes for a pretty decent American analogue, or at least one that producers would expect average American audiences to recognize. Some place in the American rust belt might've fit better thematically but hardly anyone sets stories there unless they're about those places. GC2k is dark, and rainy, and overcast. All. The fucking. Time. Is this hackneyed for the kind of film it is? Yes. Do I love it anyway for that? Also yes.
Finally, the music is perfect in its own right. Tyler Bates is no Roy Budd. Fine. And maybe you hated the late-90s/early-2000s film trend of electronic music being everywhere, but Bates never went with the obvious and still managed to pick out some bangers. This film is solely responsible for my discovery of Mint Royale, a fact that would make me cherish it alone, but the opening features Bates' take on the main title theme, "Carter Takes A Train", which I rank right up beside things like "Blade Runner Blues" on my list of great modern film music.
I know it's shit. It's shit even when you don't hold it up beside the original. Stallone can barely emote in it past "sorta angry" or "almost crying but not quite". The body count is in the single digits. McGinley does somehow not kill Carter halfway through the film and take over. But damn if I don't own Get Carter (2000) in three different formats anyway.
It's shit. But it's my kind of shit.
