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100Part of the accomplishment of Carlos is the sheer accumulation of detail the movie amasses, and the longer running time gives you a deeper sense of the terrorist lifestyle, and when and why Ilich gradually succumbed to ego and self-glorification without realizing it.
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100I haven't seen the shorter version, but I would hate to lose one moment of the gripping 66-minute sequence-really the heart of the movie-in which Carlos plots and executes his spectacular 1975 raid on the meeting of OPEC ministers in Vienna.
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100A preening terrorist for the Me generation, his primary drive was vanity and his main professional asset an absence of empathy.
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100Though it runs an epic five-and-a-half hours (it was made for French TV), Carlos books like no film since "Goodfellas." You will not be bored, ever.
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100It's a tremendously absorbing blend of history, journalism and drama. As soon as it was over, I wanted to watch it again.
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100Carlos is nevertheless a movie that one can somehow remember vividly for months. Much of this power is due to the whiplash widescreen cinematography (oft-mistaken for DV), the hopped-up editing, and, not least, Ramirez's aptly arrogant, fully transfixing, Method-style turn.
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100Hypnotic and sprawling five-hour-plus piece of cinematic genius.
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100Bravura narrative filmmaking on a hugely ambitious scale, Carlos is a spectacular achievement.
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100One of the high points of last month's Telluride Film Festival was, as I wrote at the time, spending 5½ hours in a darkened theater-with one short break around the four-hour mark-to watch Olivier Assayas's shocking and edifying epic.
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91Carlos is mostly tense and thrilling, revealing the poisonous side of global citizenship.
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90It is a tremendous achievement that shines a light on the way many countries use criminals to further their domestic and international goals. Politically informative, it also offers great drama with excitement and suspense, and no little tragedy.
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90It's a tricky feat, channeling the glamour of a famous international terrorist without glamorizing him. But damned if French filmmaker Olivier Assayas doesn't pull it off with Carlos.
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90Shot by shot, scene by scene, it's a fluid and enthralling piece of work. I wasn't bored for a millisecond.
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90Like the convictions of some born into religious families, his (Carlos) Marxism seems more a matter of habit than faith. What seems to turn him on is power, which, the movie suggests, he nurtured alongside his luxe tastes.
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88Carlos moves like a greyhound out of the gate, fleet and assured and focused on the business at hand. It's a subtle, ultimately staggering portrayal of a bloody-minded ideologue who convinced only himself.
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88The movie crawls hypnotically into the skin of this global assassin and astonishes you with its brazenly violent and sexual audacity.
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85Most of the dialogue is invented, but the sweep of events is genuine.
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83A rivetingly journalistic account of a scoundrel's rise and fall.
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80Assayas - whose previous work, though noteworthy, never hinted at this kind of ambition - gives the film a journalistic quality, while admitting that only a recombination of facts and fiction could do the story justice. It certainly results in explosive viewing.
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80Ramirez's outstanding performance and Assayes' superb skill in storytelling make this a mini-series not to be missed.
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75Carlos is exciting entertainment, even if its subject's two-decade reign of terror is reprehensible.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 10
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Mixed: 1 out of 10
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Negative: 2 out of 10
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10Carlos is as good as a movie gets. It is 5 1/2 hours of riveting pulse. Carlos sparks the internal fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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