Get Carter

GET CARTER

Rating: D
This film is a piece of shit. I don't know how I can be any more direct about that fact. Every time you think it has hit bottom, and can't possibly get any worse, it somehow manages to sink further. Along the way there's a nighttime car chase that could very well be the most boring chase sequence ever committed to film, and scene after scene of Sylvester Stallone beating up one person after another. Not exactly my idea of an entertaining night at the movies.

Stallone plays Jack Carter, a "debt collector" for shady characters in Las Vegas. If you owe money to your bookie, you don't wanna see Sly appear at your doorstep - trust me on this. When his brother wraps his car around a tree while apparently driving drunk, Stallone returns home for the funeral after a five-year absence. One of these days there's bound to be a funeral sequence where it isn't raining, but this ain't it. All I can figure is that screenwriters must get kickbacks from the guys who rent rainmaking equipment.

When Stallone noses around, he begins to suspect his brother's death wasn't an accident. But of course no one is talking, and even his late brother's wife and daughter resent his presence and his refusal to let the matter rest. Although this could have posed an interesting concept - a mob thug returns home to try to gain some degree of personal salvation by finding his brother's killers - the way the movie goes about it is all wrong. You get the feeling you're watching a bad episode of Miami Vice, as the plot continually takes back seat to posturing and cheesy camera and editing effects. It's the age-old bugaboo of style over substance.

As the movie progresses, it sinks further and further into the realm of thuggery. I'm not exaggerating when I say in almost every scene Stallone barges in on someone, asks them antagonistic questions, they refuse to answer, and then he either threatens them with violence or skips the threats and simply beats them senseless. It's bad enough when he's pummeling guys smaller than he is, but when he threatens actress Rhona Mitra with, "Tell me the truth or I'll break every bone in your body" (and he means it), you start wondering when terrorizing a defenseless woman became an admirable trait. Not exactly how the audience should be viewing the film's hero, in my humble opinion. Guess I just don't like bullies.

Stallone's acting is adequate, although his character is the one-dimensional type of role he's played so many times before. Mickey Rourke is on hand to play a sleazy pornographer who leaves a trail of slime wherever he goes. It's nice to see these actors branching out in their choice of roles. Rachael Leigh Cook plays the dead brother's daughter (which, I suppose, would make her Sly's niece), and there are several scenes between the two which are supposed to be soft and sensitive and illuminate the finer qualities of Stallone's character. Occasionally they work, such as when Cook deliberately moves some restaurant counter condiments into disarray and Stallone admits it bothers him. But all along I was desperately hoping she'd tell him everything he wanted to know so that he wouldn't break every bone in her body.

I think what bothers me most about this movie is the way it presents its unrelenting violence in a manner that's supposed to elicit cheers from the audience. Somehow director Stephen Kay seems totally oblivious to just how unimaginative and poorly written most of the film is. It's only polite that someone should point these failings out to him, wouldn't you agree?