[MacBlayne]

CARTER

Carter is the latest action extravaganza from Jeong Byeong-Gil, the lunatic behind 2017’s The Villainess. And if you thought that film teetered on the edge of insanity, then Carter is a freefall descent down the abyss.

Carter can be somewhat described as Crank meets Resident Evil meets The Bourne Identity meets John Wick meets Mad Max: Fury Road meets every Steven Seagal film meets Rope. And this is Carter’s blessing and curse. Using a lot of digital trickery, Carter is one long tracking shot that flies above the action, swoops between combatants, and dives under moving vehicles.

As you may have noticed from the logline, Carter is not especially focused on plotting. Really, the plot is an excuse for the jaw-dropping action that barely lets up. The film is constantly dialled to 11, captured by a swirling camera, and may turn you off. If you anyways susceptible to motion sickness, Carter will turn your living room into a vomitorium.

However, where moronic trash like Fast and Furious tries to use modern technology to cram cartoons into an established reality, Carter, like Michael Bay’s Ambulance, uses modern filmmaking to erode reality into a surreal facsimile. Ambulance does it much better, as Carter suffers from a budget much lower than its ambitions. It’s easy to spot all the digital tape, although I did stop paying heed after about 30 minutes. The one-shot approach means the many stabbings uses distracting digital blood, and the CGI helicopters stand out like the average Marvel rubbish.

However, Carter pushes further into surrealism than Ambulance does. Carter is what Fast and Furious pretends to be. This is a film with exploding teeth, bodies flying 50 feet in the air and crashing into buses, goons swinging from helicopters, and waterfalls of zombies. Sometimes, even the backgrounds become deliberately fake. One scene had a revelation, and all the surrounding colour seemed to slowly drain away.

The performances are another thing that makes Carter stand out from other films. Everybody is clearly in on the joke, but nobody is going to betray the gag. Joo Won is adept at delivering many beatdowns, but displays a comedic sensibility that sells his character’s confusion. The supporting cast range from scenery chewing, to conveying enough melodrama to sell the tone. Another element I liked, and probably due to it being a Netflix production designed to appeal to non-Korean audiences too, is the use of foreign extras. These extras are even given some lines, betraying their lack of experience. It feels like a delightful late 80s Hong Kong production.

This is why I ended up loving Carter. Like those Hong Kong films, it’s a scrappy effort that uses every trick in the book to reach beyond its means. Carter is bound to delight as many as it will infuriate. I recommend watching it, because even if you end up hating it, there will be the odd moment where you can’t help but smile at the audaciousness of it all.

And that’s Carter. Maybe not as good as Jimmy, but better than Billy.