RAVE - Carlos

The kind of film I love - rooted in current affairs or history (whether it's ancient, or as in this case, 1970s and 80s).

This is a new, riveting review of the rise and fall of Carlos The Jackal, the (in)famous terrorist, covering the mid 70s and his exploits in Paris, Beirut, London, Aden (now Yemen), Vienna, Algeria, Libya, East Berlin, Baghdad, Syria, and Sudan. Not much of a cruise itinerary, is it?

Released as a 5-hour mini-series (I don't know where the full version is available), I saw the 2.5 hour "cut down for US theater release" version, and it was plenty detailed, providing a gripping insight into this "celebrity" terrorist.

Edgar Ramirez does an outstanding job as Carlos, developing from the under-funded People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who gave him an old handgun and 5 bullets to assassinate a Jewish businessman and vice president of the British Zionist Foundation in London (the attempt failed because the gun jammed), to international notoriety as the leader of the gang that killed 2 at the OPEC meeting in Vienna in 1975, escaping with hostages to Algeria.

Ramirez, a Spanish speaker born in Venezuela, shows his skills with acting in English, Arabic, French, Italian, and to my linguistically-challenged ear, does an excellent job. He also added weight - what looks like 20+ pounds - to portray Carlos during a lazy, inactive period.

One annoying detail, present in virtually every film involving suspects under surveillance ... while Carlos and an associate leave a building they're photographed from a car parked opposite, where anyone but Stevie Wonder would be able to spot the photographer.

The film has all the classic 70s markers ...

- smoking everywhere, anywhere (even in the shower)

- no security, at the airport, even at an international gathering of government ministers, for heaven's sake

- the ready accession to terrorist demands

- the underwhelming response by the authorities - limp-wristed military presence (no rooftops lined with snipers, no unmarked cars trailing terrorists and their hostages to the airport)

Carlos is on a par with Syriana, Baader Meinhof Complex, and Mesrine, and better than Che.

Being a sucker for music, I can't avoid mentioning the curiously hip soundtrack (as if the film needed one), comprising Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, Joy Division, Wire, Lightning Seeds and Los Lobos.

I wonder if that musical thug Shaun Ryder feels left out, when his band Black Grape used a stylized picture of Carlos on its 1995 album, It's Great When You're Straight, Yeah?