British director of extraordinarily varied experience. Hodges looked
set for a solid career in urban drama after the success of his first
film Get Carter
(1971). But his moves further afield both in terms of subject and location
have not led to the full realisation of his potential. Hodges originally
qualified as an accountant, but work for an American TV company's British
offices prompted him to try his hand at writing. Five years editing
and writing TV series followed, after which Hodges ventured into the
documentary field as producer and director of the long-running TV news
series World in Action. He moved closer to films with profiles of movie
directors for TV arts series, and the successful direction of the TV
thrillers Suspect encouraged him to try for the big screen. The result
is still considered by many to be his best film: Get Carter (1971) was
typical of the new gritty realism in British crime films of the 1970s
and its Newcastle background, splendidly captured in steely colour photography,
gave the harsh crime drama, with few if any likeable characters, an
extra edge.
Hodges stayed with its star, Michael
Caine, for an uneven scattershot comedy Pulp
(1972), which attracted few people to cinemas, although more than the
next, The Terminal Man (1974). Flash Gordon (1980) was Hodges' contribution
to the big-budget film: like all Hodges' work, it was well-paced and
never boring, but so far over the top as to be largely ineffective in
a field whose output needs to take itself with at least a modicum of
seriousness. Morons from Outer Space (1985) proved that Hodges' forte
was definitely not lunatic farce. The dramas that surrounded it were
all of interest, but small beer at the box office, and Hodges came to
a grinding halt for several years after the last of them, Black Rainbow
(1989), well-acted and directed, but only moderately written thriller
about a medium who starts seeing deaths. Noirish thriller Croupier
(1999), a compelling character study of a casino dealer starring Clive
Owen, was panned on release in the UK but proved to be a sleeper hit.
Hodges followed the slow-burning success of Croupier (1998) with another
crime thriller that evoked memories of his classic Get Carter (1971);
the muddled and uneventful revenger I'll
Sleep When I'm Dead (2003,) which reunited Hodges with Clive Owen.
