Michael Caine is "Jack Carter" - a gangster who heads from London to Newcastle in England's north east to bury his brother "Frank". On the face of it, he was killed in a car accident after taking a dram or two too many. Thing is, though, "Carter" knows that his brother was no whisky drinker - and so smells a rat. Soon he is embroiled again in the local gangland antics in which he grew up, and on the trail of the truth and the perpetrators. To be honest, I don't think this is Caine's finest work - he is distinctly wooden for much of it; even when naked pointing a shotgun at two men (George Sewell and Tony Beckley) who caught him in flagrante delicto with Rosemarie Dunham's "Edna". That said, though, Mike Hodges captures well the gritty and threatening environment in which the story is set; the pace builds well and the story - though, frankly rather thin - concludes with an ending that I found entirely fitting, if a little strung out. Perhaps time has just neutered the impetus of this film? I can see why it might be considered cult, and Caine does have charisma in spades - but here there just isn't enough of a plot, nor strength in the supporting cast (which features one, pretty erotic, scene with Britt Ekland over a telephone which hardly merits a share of top billing) to lift this from a noir mediocrity. That said, the film is worth a watch. It depicts a North East England that was pretty much at the nadir of it's economic existence and with a criminal fraternity that traded in just about every commodity including children - but somehow much of that potency is just lacking now.