[[quoteright:215:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Carter1.jpg]]

->''"You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself."''
-->-- '''Jack Carter'''

1971 British gangster film, starring MichaelCaine as the title character, Jack Carter, a prominent LondonGangster who returns to his hometown of Newcastle, England to find out who killed his brother. the work has become a classic in the gangster film genre. It was remade in 2000 with SylvesterStallone as the title character and Caine in a minor role, but was not successful.

The film itself is a deliberate {{Deconstruction}} of the gangster film genre it has become a classic of. Caine himself was determined to avert the feel good or comedy aspects of TheCaper style gangster movie, in favour of a DarkerAndEdgier gritty realism, saying;

->''"One of the reasons I wanted to make that picture was my background. In English movies, gangsters were either stupid or funny. I wanted to show that they’re neither. Gangsters are not stupid, and they’re certainly not very funny."''

Watching ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'' and then ''Get Carter'', which Caine made back-to-back, shows the stark difference in the portrayal of gangsters in each.

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!!This film provides examples of:

* AntiHero: Carter is a cold-blooded and remorseless killing machine who would be the villain in most movies, except here he's on a mission of vengeance against other gangsters.
* {{Badass}}: Carter through and through.
* BadassBoast: Carter gives one to Brumby:
-->'''Carter:''' You're a big man but in bad shape. With me it's a full-time job. Now behave yourself.
* BadassInANiceSuit: Carter is quite dapper. He's from the big city, after all.
* BadassLongcoat
* BerserkButton: When Carter watches the porn flick...
* BlackComedy: Any time that someone says "See you've still got your sense of humor, Jack..."
* BrainBleach: Carter's reaction when he watches the porn flick with his own niece in it.
* CarCushion: [[spoiler:Brumby's death after he is beaten up by Carter.]]
* ChekhovsGun: The double-barreled shotgun that Carter held with him, although he never fires it once. Though at the end, [[spoiler:he beats Eric to death with the stock.]]
* ChekhovsGunman: J, the assassin, turns out [[spoiler:to be Kinnear's hitman. He himself appears earlier on in the opening scene, and later kills Carter himself at the end.]]
* ColdSniper: J, the assassin.
* CoolTrain: The opening title sequence.
* {{Determinator}}: Nothing on earth will get in the way of Jack's quest for vengeance.
* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Eric, who was responsible for Frank's death, forces a bottle of whisky down his throat before killing him in a car crash. So Carter, in retaliation, forces Eric to also drink a bottle of whisky before bludgeoning him to death.]]
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Cliff Brumby was killed by Jack Carter this way]].
* DownerEnding: At the end, [[spoiler:Jack himself gets killed by an assassin. Given what kind of anti-hero he is, however, this is to be expected]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Carter is a murderer. The porn tape is a BerserkButton.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The assassin himself was credited as "J" in the end credits.
* ForceFeeding: [[spoiler:What Carter does to Eric at the end.]]
* FullFrontalAssault: Carter fights some hitmen while buck naked.
* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies: Carter himself at the end.]]
* LondonGangster: Jack himself.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Frank's death.
* [[SeanconneryIsAboutToShootYou Michael Caine is About to Shoot You]]: The film's poster. See the page image above.
* MysteriousMercenaryPursuer: The assassin.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Carter brandishing a shotgun to clear his rented room of mobsters.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Eric unwittingly murders [[spoiler: Kinnear's girlfriend Glenda]] by backing the car that Carter was driving into the dock while [[spoiler: she is still locked in the trunk]]. It is quite likely Jack [[FridgeBrilliance informs]] [[spoiler:Kinnear]] of this while blackmailing him to set Eric up to be killed.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Despite being from Northern England, Jack still speaks with Caine's trademark Cockney dialect.
* NoNameGiven: The assassin out for Carter is identified only by his signet ring, which sports a J.
* NotOnTheList: Jack punches a bouncer who says he's isn't in the list.
* OopNorth: Newcastle in all it's grimy, pre-[[MargaretThatcher Iron Lady]], early-1970s glory.
* RealitySubtext: The tension between Carter and Eric Paice (Ian Hendry) was assisted by the fact that Carter was originally going to be played by Ian Hendry until Michael Caine was hired, much to Hendry's resentment.
* RevengeBeforeReason: What eventually defines Carter himself.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The plot in a nutshell.
* TheSeventies: The horrible, horrible Seventies.
* TheStoic: Jack almost never panics even when getting shot at.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Carter's relationship with his hometown is quite different, ever since he left the place.
* SociopathicHero
* TelevisionGeography: A foot chase has the protagonists running from Blythe Staithes (in the county of Northumberland) onto the beach at Blackhall Rocks (in the County of Durham), a mere 35 miles farther south. [[spoiler:The scene is the climax of the film]]
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The "International Trailer" on the current UK DVD shows what happens to Margaret and Eric and Brumby and the man in the white sweater (see below).
* UnbuiltTrope: The film feels at times like a brutal deconstruction of the Brit gangster flick that emerged in the late 90's due to directors like Creator/GuyRitchie and Matthew Vaughan. The villains are shown as ruthless and incredibly sleazy, the killings are done in a very matter-of-fact manner with little blood and no dramatic tricks, it's set in bleak Newcastle rather than London, there is a complete absence of any pop soundtrack or any form of music and the lead character is cold-hearted and utterly ruthless, not shown as any better than the men he kills. Were it made today, it would almost certainly be a ''GenreDeconstruction''. Yet it was made in 1971, long before British Gangster films became big.
* TheVoiceless: J himself only gets to talk one time in the movie, and he is talking with Kinnear on the phone.
* WhiteShirtOfDeath: Carter stabs [[spoiler:Albert Swift]], who is wearing a white sweater, which makes the resulting blood all the more shocking.

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