Mike Hodges

  • Get Carter (1971)

    Get Carter (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Lean, gritty and very mean, Get Carter pushed the British gangster film into neo-noir, offered a career-high Michael Caine showcase and launched writer-director Mike Hodges’s career… and spawned quite a few imitators in the following decades. Caine stars as a driven mobster, rampaging through the Newscastle underground to avenge the murder of his brother. As befit an early 1970s crime film, Get Carter gleefully unshackles itself from the restraints of earlier cinema to deliver a still-unpleasant crime tale filled with rough violence, anti-heroic characters and troubling questions. Even the bleak ending hardly offers any comfort for the viewers. But what was considered almost insupportably nihilist at the time had aged nicely into a harsh neo-noir, considerably bolstered by Caine’s tough performance. Hodges’ style here is not that different from the British kitchen-sink dramas of the neo-realistic era—everything is gritty and grimy, decidedly unglamorous all the way to a coal-stained ending. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Get Carter is now a classic British film of its era. Twice (horribly) remade, Get Carter had more influence in inspiring other British directors to tackle crime-themed thrillers—but arguably so much so that anyone going back to the original may find themselves wondering what it’s all about, so often has it been copied and remixed.

  • The Terminal Man (1974)

    The Terminal Man (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) Michael Crichton’s techno-thriller novel The Terminal Man may date from the prehistory of computers as a social force, but it’s still well worth reading for its breathless anticipation of issues that still preoccupy commentators nearly fifty years later. Its film adaptation, on the other hand … is something else. If you’re expecting a hard-edged exciting adaptation in the style of a realistic thriller, then get out now because writer-director-producer Mike Hodges is after something else entirely: an impressionistic, surreal, vague and slooow. In keeping with the prevailing New Hollywood aesthetics of the time, The Terminal Man is grimy and depressing, not having much to offer except death as a conclusion. It was, inevitably, a resounding flop upon release. It’s probably better regarded today in that the visual aspect of the film is quite strong, and we don’t necessarily bat an eye when 1970s films fly off in their own self-absorbed bubble. Some moments seem to share kinship with sequences of The Shining, but that may just be two visual filmmakers (who knew each other) working in parallel. Even star George Segal looks lost at times as the homicidal protagonist. As a piece of art-house visual exercise, The Terminal Man may be tolerable to some. As an adaptation of a novel with a strong narrative, however, it’s dull and underwritten.

  • Flash Gordon (1980)

    Flash Gordon (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) Oh wow. I’m not sure you can actually describe Flash Gordon without sounding certifiably insane, so wholeheartedly does it commit to its campy style. 1980 was like a parallel universe when seen through the campy mind of director Mike Hodges, and I’m not sure where to start in order to give you a taste of the film’s built-in ludicrousness. Maybe Queen’s soundtrack with its eponymous FLASH! (Ah-ah-Aaaah) ? Maybe the prologue where a bored supervillain decides to destroy the Earth out of spite? Maybe the hero, a football star thrown in galactic conflicts? Maybe the unrepentant use of musty clichés such as the scientist and his daughter? Maybe the gaudy visual design of the film? Maybe Max von Sydow and BRIAN BLESSED hamming it up, along with such notables as Timothy Dalton and Topol in other roles? Maybe choice quotes along the lines of “Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”  I don’t know. Flash Gordon has a messy production history, and the fairest assessment you can make of it was that Dino de Laurentis thought it was a good idea to resurrect a 1930s comic strip, except that the people tasked with writing and executing the project found the thing so ridiculous that they left the throttle firmly struck in the “parody” setting and the result got away from them. Or they all played along. No matter how you see it, Flash Gordon is a terrible big brash loud movie that feels as if it’s an hours-long hallucination. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.