Catch Carter

Jack Carter works for London gangsters. When his brother dies in Newcastle, Carter arrives for his funeral. The official version speaks of a drunken accident, only that Frank practically did not drink. Carter begins to ask questions that no one wants to answer, and each answer brings him closer to the truth he himself would rather not know.

Full-length debut Mike Hodges came to the cinema from a TV documentary, and you can see it perfectly. The photographs were taken in 1970 in Newcastle, Gateshead and County Durham — in authentic pubs, bookmakers, townhouses and boardwalks, without a single postcard composition. Architecture is the film's fully-fledged hero thanks to this: Gateshead's brutalist Trinity Square car park, where one of the key scenes takes place, was demolished decades later, and CATCHING CARTER is one of his most important portraits today. The film was made at the very moment when the British film industry was crashing — MGM was closing its studio in Borehamwood — and that atmosphere of the end of something permeates the whole picture. Roy Buddha's jazz theme, recorded for a sum that today would not be enough for catering, has become one of the most recognizable melodies in the history of British cinema.

In the cast, apart from Michael Caine, it is worth noting Ian Hendry and John Osborne, who plays the gangster boss with frightening calm and composure. British critics at the time of the premiere complained primarily about the violence and the fact that the hero does not show a gram of remorse. Half a century has passed, and it is precisely these two things that make Hodges' film a classic: sixteenth place on the list of the hundred best British films of the BFI, the first in the “Total Film” readers' plebiscite, the overt delight of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, as well as a remake with Sylvester Stallone, which is better to quickly forget about.