Directed by Olivier Assayas
(R)
****
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As soon as this five-and-a-half-hour biopic ended, “I wanted to watch it again,” said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. Spanning two decades in the life of the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, it’s “a tremendously absorbing blend of history, journalism, and drama” built around a “fearless” performance by its star. Edgar Ramírez “dominates the screen” as the Venezuelan revolutionary who epitomized the West’s idea of global terrorism in the 1970s and ’80s. Born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez before taking “Carlos” as a code name, the young Marxist and pro-Palestinian guerrilla exulted in his outlaw celebrity, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. But as this partially fictionalized film shows him orchestrating political hits and kidnappings before finally being arrested in Sudan in 1994, it lets audiences form their opinions about the man—and what his story says about the future of terrorism. Long but illuminating, Carlos shows us how easily revolutionary ideology can devolve into “murderous power-mongering,” said Rob Nelson in The Village Voice. It’s the “history of pre-9/11 terror in microcosm.”
