Get Carter (2000)

Directed by Stephen Kay. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, Rachael Leigh Cook, Alan Cumming, Miranda Richardson, Michael Caine, John C. McGinley, Rhona Mitra, Johnny Strong, Gretchen Mol, John Cassini. [R]

Pointless rehash of the brutal 1971 English crime thriller of the same name moves the action to modern day Seattle, swaps out Michael Caine at his coldest for Sylvester Stallone at his glummest, and puts it all in the hands of a director more interested in aggressive (and aggressively irritating) visual tricks and gimmicks than telling the complicated story in a clear or absorbing fashion. As it was last time, severe gangster Jack Carter (Stallone) goes home for his brother’s funeral and, suspecting foul play, looks into the circumstances of the man’s death. Even more than the original, this film wallows in its amorality to the point where it almost tries to rationalize the behavior (even titillate audiences with it), ultimately cheapening the murky tone by making a travesty of its resolution. The craft neither satisfies nor forgives this technique, and the action is often incomprehensible, including a couple of superfluous car chases that are so haphazardly edited that the filmmakers could have slipped in a few shots with different actors driving different cars in different cities and hardly anyone would notice. Not even worth watching to see why Caine agreed to a supporting role (it’s a rather thankless one, at that). Mol went uncredited for her small part; Tom Sizemore (also uncredited) is heard but not seen as a mob boss in Vegas.

25/100