The picture above appears twice [once in the table of contents and again as a TWO page spread] in the premiere issue of Total Movie. Here’s their take on
Get Carter
IN A NUTSHELL: Back on the screen for the first time since 1997’s Cop Land, STALLONE heads up this remake of the 1971 MICHAEL CAINE classic as Jack Carter, a bad-ass New York mob enforcer who travels to Los Angeles to kill the sons-of-bitches who murdered his brother. Heads are cracked, asses are kicked and bad guys throughly pummeled as Carter goes on a vengence-fueled rampage though LA’s criminal underworld.
POTENTIAL: The script’s written by TED LEWIS, who wrote the orginal, and DAVID McKENNA, who wrote American History X – a promising team. STEVEN SODERBERG‘s awesome The Limey proved that these old-school one-man-army thrillers can still pay off in spades, so our hopes are high. And yes, MICHAEL CAINE is back, too.
PITTFALLS: Even MEL GIBSON had a hard time getting audiences to root for the bad guy in the underrated Payback, so what chance STALLONE? In the 1990s he served up such crud as Judge Dredd, Assassins, Daylight, Oscar, The Specialist, and Cliffhanger (come on, it was crap) – not exactly encouraging evidence of his choices of material. Oh, and MICKEY ROURKE‘s in it.
TOTAL MOVIE SAYS: Go and rent the original for an idea about why we’re excited to see this one – STALLONE‘s stepped in a few turds lately, true, but we have a feeling this hard-edged crime caper will prove that he can still get it done.
The editors are pretty down on many of SLY‘s movies yet they still eagerly anticpate “Get Carter” – I think that says a lot about the potential of this movie. I’m looking forward to this as much as I did “Cop Land” and feel that it has the potential to be as good [or even better].
This is Total Movie‘s first issue and it is very impressive… enough so that I plan to subscribe. It’s worth checking out but be sure that if you purchase an issue it is still in a plastic bag with a dvd attached. The dvd contains over two hours of movie previews, behind the scenes material and more! The first store I went to had only opened copies and all the dvds were missing!
– Craig Zablo [September 23, 2000]