Carlos inevitably feels disjointed in its final hour. But the ambition, scope and drive impress greatly, as does Ramírez, who nails his character’s fascinating contradictions.
Ramirez's outstanding performance and Assayes' superb skill in storytelling make this a mini-series not to be missed.
Not everyone has forgotten Carlos and his deeds. Nor will anyone who sees Assayas’s picture, and Ramirez’s towering performance, forget them in a hurry.
Ramirez wings from Brando to Oliver Reed, head enormous above a bad leather jacket, one moment full of lickspittle cruelty, the next squirming in terrifying frustration.
Ultimately your appreciation of Carlos may depend a great deal on how you feel about watching terrorists in silly hats sitting around talking about Leninism.
It really does rattle along, and Ramírez is a very convincing Carlos: on the run like a bank robber, an ideologue with no ideas, left marooned when the tides of history turn against him.
Shuttling from one phase of his career to the next with bristling assurance, Assayas’s film peaks with the Vienna Opec raid in 1975, a near-two-hour tranche of ideological intrigue, fraying objectives and jittery wranglings with air traffic control. It absolutely whizzes by.
While it is best viewed in its entire 355-minute version for the full impact, the abridged 165-minute cut works brilliantly.
Dynamically shot in Cinemascope, and constantly switching between international locations, Carlos is a film which, in focussing on one reckless individual, illuminates a whole era and offers a vivid perspective on global terrorism.
Now in his early 60s, unlikely ever to be released from incarceration in a French jail, Carlos is a figure on the bleak landscape of our terrible times, and the viewer of this engrossing film is left to judge whether he's a tragic one.
This is one of the most provocative, illuminating and downright riveting films of the year – every last minute of it.
Carlos makes me nostalgic for terrorism the way it used to be
Interview: Olivier Assayas, film director
Carlos director Olivier Assayas on the terrorist who became a pop culture icon
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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