Get Carter

A fairly awful remake, Get Carter follows Sylvester Stallone’s Jack Carter as he travels to his hometown to look into his brother’s mysterious death. Filmmaker Stephen Kay, working from David McKenna’s screenplay, delivers a mostly sluggish thriller that fares especially poorly within its meandering and uninvolving first half, as the narrative is, particularly during the tedious midsection, concerned primarily with Jack’s far-from-engrossing investigation and his concurrent confrontations with several shady figures – including Mickey Rourke’s Cyrus, Alan Cumming’s Jeremy, and Michael Caine’s Cliff. (The degree to which the talented cast is, for the most part, entirely wasted is nothing short of flabbergasting, ultimately.) The arms-length atmosphere is heightened and perpetuated by Kay’s reliance on distracting and hopelessly ostentatious visual choices, and while the picture has admittedly been peppered with a small handful of compelling sequences (eg Jack’s niece, Rachael Leigh Cook’s Doreen, tearfully confesses a traumatic episode), Get Carter builds towards a revenge-heavy third act that is, perhaps unsurprisingly, unable to pack the exciting, visceral punch one might’ve anticipated – with the end result a complete and total misfire that feels endless even at just 102 minutes.

*1/2 out of ****