Carlos

Movie: Carlos

Cast: Édgar Ramírez (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, aka 'Carlos')

Genre: Biography, historical drama

I saw it on: December 29, 2010

Synopsis: It seems that this was originally shot as a 3-part miniseries by a French production company. It has apparently been released or shown in various lengths.  The one I saw in the theatre is the full length 5½ hour version. The beginning of the film goes to great lengths to explain that most of the movie is a fictionalized account of the life of Carlos - the famous terrorist from the 70’s and 80’s.  Sprinkled throughout the movie are what appeared to be actual news footage of some of Carlos’ exploits.

Carlos wrecked havoc in the 70’s.  He is probably the most famous – or infamous – terrorist in history.  He was the mastermind who took the oil ministers of OPEC captive during the 1975 OPEC meeting in Austria. Although he was born in Venezuela, much of his terrorist efforts were on behalf of middle east regimes. When two of his operatives were captured by the French, he “declared war” on them with a series of terrorist bombings.  The film chronicles his rise to world-wide fame along with his decline to being little more than a figure of historic interest.

My two cents: This was a fascinating story of a fascinating figure in history.  His exploits in the 70’s are just one more historically significant event from the 70’s that I seemed to have been oblivious to when it happened.  The first I remember hearing the name “Carlos” was in the 1997 Bruce Willis version of the movie “Day of the Jackal”.

The utter disregard Carlos had for life was shocking.  No matter how often I hear about terrorist attacks, I can never grasp the justification for killing innocent people over ideological differences.  To punish the French government fro putting his operatives on trial, he did stuff like blowing up a high-speed passenger train – full of people who had nothing to do with him or his operatives.  The arrogance of people like Carlos astonish me – to be so sure that they know what is right for the world and feel it is perfectly acceptable to kill hundreds or thousands of innocents to further what they think is right.

This movie is well-worth seeing, but I would suggest waiting for it to come out on DVD or on TV as a miniseries.