Metacritic reviews

Grim, violent, and stylishly directed, Get Carter is an interesting film that brings some freshness to British crime cinema.

Possibly Caine's finest hour in one of the grittiest, most suspense-filled crime dramas of all time.

Get Carter has as much value as a piece of social history as it does as a thriller.

As bleak as it is hard and viciously uncompromising, Get Carter is one of those films that has become increasingly interesting over time.

Mike Hodges' top-notch adaptation of a Ted Lewis novel not only maintains interest but conveys with rare artistry, restraint and clarity the many brutal, sordid and gamy plot turns.

Its violence is so ghastly and unremitting and its view of the human condition is so perfectly vile that one would almost rather wash one's mouth out with soap than recommend it. Yet it is so finely acted and crafted—and is so spectacularly better than the run of its genre—that as a lover of movies one feels practically diity‐bound to sing its praises.

Get Carter has the sure feel for the underbelly of society, like the good American detective novelists have always had.

Often grim, sometimes nasty, but awfully interesting.

Refusing ever to dwell, it cuts sharp rather than deep, but sharp enough.

So calculatedly cool and soulless and nastily erotic that it seems to belong to a new genre of virtuoso viciousness. What makes the movie unusual is the metallic elegance and the singleminded proficiency with which it adheres its sadism-for-the-connoisseur formula.