So much average

Powerful

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

In 1973, Venezuelan Marxist Ilich Ramirez 'Carlos' Sanchez is in Europe as a high operative for the PFLP. He assassinates targets. When his superior André is arrested, PFLP head Wadie Haddad assigns him to take OPEC oil ministers at their Vienna conference hostage. In December 21, 1975, his group succeeds in taking hostages but their attempt to find asylum ends in failure. He goes to work for himself causing havoc around the world.Olivier Assayas tries to fit a very big life into a limited space. Édgar Ramírez is great. This is a juicy part. I saw the shorter version and it has a compressed feel. Three hours is not enough to get the whole story. This needs to be a longer TV show or a shorter movie of the OPEC hostage taking. This has the great feel of the era. The hostage taking and the subsequent turmoil is fascinating and would make for a tight historical thriller.

A partly fictionalized biopic of the Venezuelan born, Marxist ideologue, political terrorist, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, who took the alias Carlos, aka Carlos the Jackal. He is a democrat and a socialist of the Marxist philosophy (devolution of the class and power to the proletariat), who soldered against imperialist, the capitalist west. He joined forces with the Arab revolutionary cause, the PLO, who took up the revolutionary cause during the soviet era. The movie is 3 part or in 3 volumes each of about 2 hours which in whole covers 2 decades of this active revolutionary days, for the cause. The French-German style of directing and the artistic depiction of the decade is of the most excellent appeal. Édgar Ramírez who played Carlos is the main highlight for without his strong acting presence the movie/mini series would be have been just average. A must watch.

Carlos the Jackal does way to much to be something that its not. A film more about the story then the entertainment. The long running time (2h: 45m) gives you the feeling that, like with any long running film, that it will be an absolute masterpiece or a boring film that drags on forever. This film was centered right in the middle. Its depiction of the greatest terrorist to ever lived shows glimpses of a genius masterpiece, but with such long intervals between great scenes it makes it a struggle to hold complete attention till the end. Keeping attention till the very end comes with no reward, expecting an exciting ending that makes the nearly three-hour movie worthwhile never comes. Although Edgar Ramirez was a picture perfect Carlos and gave one of the performances of his career, in which he deserved his Golden Globe nominations. If you're interested in the story rather then the entertainment, then you will enjoy this movie. Entertainment wise, it's not the greatest.

The story was interesting and worth the watch. Despite the disclaimers that stated fictitious characters were introduced in the movie and some events or parts of them were also fictionalized for artistic content, I like to think as I'm sure many others will, that it did not matter; we get a sense of what terrorism at the time, the 70's and 80's, was probably like. The movie has a lot of action scenes, a plus. It had too many solo nude scenes of the character Carlos. My guess is the director(s) tried to convey the narcissistic side of the man; I can't rule out that possibility. I would have preferred he had some of the women Carlos was famous for seducing into his world of violence, with him in the nude scenes. Édgar Ramírez did okay with the character of Carlos, but I think that had the direction of the movie been better quality, Ramirez would have provided a much better performance. The editing was sloppy and almost amateurish, I'm sorry to say. It won't spoil your enjoyment of the movie but if you watched the two part series "Mesrine", you can see the difference better editing and direction can do.