Initially conceived as a five-hour three-part TV mini-series, Carlos, for the cinema release, has been cut in half to avoid bums being numbed on an epic scale. The result, although a generous decision on behalf of director Assayas, is mixed, however, the commanding central performance from Edgar Ramirez makes it easy to overlook the film's shortcomings.
A biopic of Carlos The Jackal (played by Edgar Ramirez), the revolutionary who staged the kidnapping of key oil ministers from an OPEC meeting in Austria in 1975, this political thriller takes us from 1973, where he's employed by PFLP leader Wadie Haddad (an impressively menacing turn from Ahmed Kaabour) to assassinate a pro-Israel businessman in London, and then his rise to the top of the world's most wanted list. After the fallout of the OPEC job, Carlos is sidelined by the PFLP and is left to nomadically roam the globe looking for a quiet corner to disappear.
Comparisons to recent thrillers like The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, Che and Mesrine abound. Carlos lacks the motivation of the former (the idealism of BMC was to the fore throughout, but Assayas takes the audience's knowledge of Carlos as a given - although there's lots of talk about a revolution, the why isn't on screen) but it's a lot more interesting and exciting than the German outing and Soderbergh's rather flat Che. It has more in common with Mesrine - meticulous and studious, it's a down-to-earth, good-looking thriller with a charismatic lead character.
Assayas sets up his film as a series of conflicting arguments. Are sex and violence similar? The seductive nature of violence is a common theme here: one scene sees Carlos rubbing a grenade against a girlfriend's body and she almost reaches orgasm from the touch; another sees him caress a pistol with as much care as he does his women; in that same scene he barks aggressive orders at an underling before she allows him to open her dressing gown. The director also raises the terrorist vs. The freedom fighter and anti-Zionism vs. Anti-Semitism arguments too. It's always interesting stuff with the sporadic outbursts of violence delivered in a very un-movie like but refreshing fashion.
The constant fades to black, where the film has obviously cut scenes from the mini-series, stalls the pace and renders one sequence flowing easier than others. Carlos' centrepiece, the OPEC situation, is the film's highlight and there's nothing in the canon to match it, which is disappointing as it happens about halfway through. Assayas' use of 80s and 90s music (New Order, Lightning Seeds) during the 70s scenes is an odd decision too.
But with Edgar Ramirez's stirring turn in the lead role, it's easy to ignore all this. Playing the super professional Jackal, it could have been easy to leave the audience cold to his plight but Ramirez brings a warmth to the character.
