Get Carter (1971)

The version with Michael Caine, obviously, not Stallone. I've only seen a little bit of the latter, though I assume the plot is roughly the same. Carter (Caine) returns to Newcastle for his brother's funeral and quickly comes to the conclusion his brother did not drunk drive into the oceans. He then proceeds to ruffle some feathers while trying to get to the truth.

Although I was surprised that the local mobs don't really do much directly. One time, they do the bit where he's presented with a ticket for the train out of town and advised to use it. He declines, obviously, and there's a brief scuffle. After that, they have Carter's boss send some guys from London to try and bring him back. But no scenes of them kicking the crap out of him and telling him to heal up elsewhere.

The other thing that surprised me is the police only got involved at the very end, because Carter brought them in. Apparently British mobsters don't have cops on their payrolls. Or don't use them for things like this. The end effect is the mob guys come off as kind of ineffectual. It doesn't feel like Carter survives because he's especially good at being a tough guy, so much as they just kind of let him run around doing whatever. When someone does decide to step in, they take care of him fairly quickly, so maybe Britain takes a more low-key, realistic approach to these kinds of stories.

Caine has this air of being apart from everyone else. Even in crowds he's shot in a way where it's like there's an invisible buffer around him. As though everyone subconsciously senses he's one to keep a distance from. He spends most of the movie standing almost perfectly straight. Doesn't slouch, doesn't lean away from people, rarely leans towards them. Maintains that distance, and it lets him tower over everyone. Lot of shots taken looking up towards him, or shot so we can see him looking down at whoever he's talking.

He's also a complete shit, leaning heavily on the "anti" in "anti-hero". He doesn't care if people who help him get hurt for their trouble, not really. He'll throw a little money at them and call it good. I don't believe he actually cares about his brother. He doesn't share any fond memories of their childhood, or anything that suggests they were close. It feels more territorial. Someone hurt his brother, and they need to learn not to touch his stuff.

Not that you'd expect mob muscle to be a swell guy, but he doesn't bother to pretend. You still mostly want him to succeed in taking down the main bad guys, but he basically kills anyone tangentially related, and it seems excessive. I don't think a guy who's a fist-for-hire has the moral high ground a woman who sells her body for money. Yeah, they helped kill he's brother. And he's probably killed a lot of other people's brothers. I'm sure Caine could put enough charisma into his performance I wouldn't care, but he doesn't here, by design I'm assuming.