Review of Carlos (2010) by Kyle G — 30 May 2012

A wonderful, very deep stab into 20th-century true crime. At 5.5 hours total, the film examines Carlos the Jackal all the way from Paris in the '70s, through the bloody and unsettling OPEC hostage-taking in 1975, to his ignominious downfall in Sudan in the mid-'90s. It has quite a girth, but I think the film is very successful and clearly taut the whole way through.

Edgar Ramirez, the Venezuelan actor playing Carlos, didn't always hold my interest -- brusque and dull, even while portraying facets of brusqueness and dullness! -- but there are enough lush settings, enough tense action sequences, and enough substantial minor characters to pull me through his occasional fumbles. And he's a very talented artist besides, with a valuable exposé of violent egoism and horrible passive-aggression to provide, so if he couldn't carry the script for such a long time it's not a big problem.

I find Carlos the film a bit looser and less effective than Mesrine (another multi-part biopic, by a gifted French filmmaker, about the personal seeds of crime), but that could be just the difference in their lengths.