Remember the Shaft remake from earlier this year?  The 1971 original was updated and 58-year-old Richard Roundtree, the star of the first film, was given a smaller role in the second to make way for a newer, hipper lead.

But Shaft isn’t the only remake from ’71 to rear its head in 2000.  Get Carter was originally a British flick based on Ted Lewis’ novel “Jack’s Return Home” that starred recent Oscar winner Michael Caine (it also became a 1972 blaxploitation movie called Hit Man with Bernie Casey and Pam Grier).  Caine (The Cider House Rules) has a smaller role in the new version, but he isn’t making way for a newer, hipper lead.  In fact, Carter’s new lead, Sylvester Stallone, is only four years younger than Roundtree.

The new adaptation updates the cheesy ‘70s music, clothes and hair, while the story remains somewhat the same.  Vegas heavy Jack Carter  (Stallone, Cop Land) learns that his estranged brother has been killed in Seattle and heads off to his old stomping ground to find out if the accident was really caused by drunk driving or by more devious means. For some reason, he suspects foul play and, like Terence Stamp in The Limey, he’s right.

When Carter gets to Seattle, he heads straight for his brother’s funeral, where he meets his sister-in-law Gloria (Miranda Richardson, Sleepy Hollow) and niece Doreen (Rachael Leigh Cook, She’s All That). He begins to pester them with questions about the accident, but they see his queries as an annoyance.  Doreen even tells Carter, “You’re just a picture on the piano,” despite the fact we see no pictures on the piano in a later scene.  Probably just a figure of speech.

Once Carter hits the streets to investigate his brother’s lifestyle and death, we’re introduced to a jumble of characters from which we must figure out the pecking order of Seattle’s crime food chain as he pummels his way to the top.  You’re supposed to be surprised by the kingpin, but it’s really quite predictable.  In that respect, Carter is kind of like Mel Gibson’s Payback.

The original version of Carter was much, much better and is widely regarded as one of the finest British crime pics ever made.  It was directed by Mike Hodges, who went on to make Flash Gordon and, more impressively, the recent sleeper hit Croupier.  There are two fantastic scenes in the first film that I was surprised to see omitted from the remake.  One involved a steamy phone sex call between Carter and the girlfriend of his mob boss back home.  It must have been pretty risqué 20 years ago, but by today’s standards, it would be quite tame.

The other scene involved two thugs walking in on Carter while he was shagging some bird.  He was able to turn the tables on the situation, leading the men down the stairs and out of the house with a shotgun while completely naked.  And, of course, the ending of the new film is completely different.  Interestingly, there is a mysterious female character named Geraldine (Rhona Mitra, Hollow Man) in the remake, somewhat of a nod to the original role played by Geraldine Moffatt.

Even without the lackluster comparisons to the original film, Carter has plenty of problems.  The film appears to be set just before Christmas, but there isn’t the slightest hint of chilly weather.  It is perpetually gloomy and rainy in Carter’s Seattle, which doesn’t stop Jack from sporting sunglasses most of the time.  Stallone’s performance is unremarkable in every way, unless you count the disgusting veins protruding from his shoulders and arms, or the goatee that’s supposed to make him look younger.

Editor Jerry Greenberg (Duets), whose technique resembles the comedic styling of Robin Williams after fourteen espressos, makes Carter’s action scenes more annoying and spastic than Armageddon.  The film was directed by Stephen T. Kay (The Last Time I Committed Suicide and one of the screenwriters of The Mod Squad) and adapted by David McKenna (Body Shots).  Kay’s direction is “highlighted” by a scene where the camera is turned upside down in an attempt to show how Carter’s life has gone topsy-turvy.  Give me a break.

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