Boring, long, and too preachy.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The life of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez is extremely interesting in its own right, but the success of this project really depended upon Édgar Ramírez, who rose to the occasion in a remarkable way. Through him, the viewer can see the charismatic, ambitious, inspiring, fiery, driven, obsessed, aggressive, narcissistic, lecherous, hot-tempered, morally and ethically flexible person behind the notorious and fearsome reputation of Carlos the Jackal. One also gains pretty good insight into some of what drives, and the development of, revolutionaries, insurgents, terrorists, etc., and this series begs the question of where the line between those different classifications lies. The project also calls out how instrumental governments have been in the success of these non-state combatants, and the ensuing hypocrisy of such governments in denouncing these individuals once their services lose enough value. Additionally, viewers can appreciate a fascinating account of the development of the Cold War from the perspective of its "front-lines" fighters and in constantly shifting international settings. In sum, this is a brilliant series about fascinating people and subjects, brought to life by excellent actors.For more reviews and a kickass podcast, check out: www.livemancave.com

I would have given this production a 10, especially for the superb performance by Edgar Ramirez, except for the lack of subtitling when English was being spoken, and what subtitles did exist were too small to read, even on a large screen TV! Whenever the characters were speaking in their own language, whether it be French, German, Russian, Hungarian or other, it was subtitled, but not when they were speaking in English. As there was not a native English speaking actor in the entire production, the heavy accents were just too hard to understand. This seems to be standard with the English version of French productions in that they only subtitle foreign languages.The performance by Edgar Ramirez was just amazing, especially his changing appearance, not just facial and hair style, but his body appeared thicker and heavier in the later episodes as he aged from a young man to a mature 40 something. I did find it interesting that the terrorists all drank Johnny Walker red label and smoked Marlboros - not a Pasha, Galoise nor a Gitane between them, and boy did they smoke! Why any of them are still alive and not dead of lung cancer or heart attack is a mystery.'Carlos' and the other terrorists were not shown in a sympathetic or glamorous light, but neither were they all black. They came across as deluded fanatics with little sympathy for the victims who they sacrificed for the 'cause', whatever cause that happened to be at the time. 'Carlos' and his followers did not appear to have too many qualms about selling themselves to the highest bidder as terrorists for hire when it suited them; although, some of them were not too happy about being diverted from their Marxist views of equality for all. Of course, there were groupies and hangers on bedazzled by the perceived glamour and excitement more than ideological fervor. Although the Marxist Leninist fanatics and their groupies have had their day, things have not really changed as the Jihad true believers and their foolish female followers, the 'Jihadi brides'and suicide bombers have taken their place. It was interesting to see how the countries who had supported 'Carlos' turned against him when the cold war ended and they had no further use for him. He believe he was untouchable and irreplaceable as they laid out the red carpet for him, but he was only tolerated as long as they had a need for his dirty work. Suddenly he was a pariah and no longer welcome - don't call us, we'll call you! I particularly enjoyed the lack of American involvement in this series. One shudders to think of marines yelling and bawling 'Go, go go' and how they would claim credit for the apprehension and capture of Ramirez, as they claimed credit for capturing the enigma cypher machine from the Germans in WW2 (U-571). Arabs and Muslims would have been the bad guys and the Americans would have saved the day with the help of Israeli back up. The Europeans can do very well on their own, as shown by TV series such as Spiral, Wallender, and Un Village Francais without Uncle Sam hogging center stage.

A partly fictionalized biopic of the Venezuelan born, Marxist ideologue, political terrorist, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, who took the alias Carlos, aka Carlos the Jackal. He is a democrat and a socialist of the Marxist philosophy (devolution of the class and power to the proletariat), who soldered against imperialist, the capitalist west. He joined forces with the Arab revolutionary cause, the PLO, who took up the revolutionary cause during the soviet era. The movie is 3 part or in 3 volumes each of about 2 hours which in whole covers 2 decades of this active revolutionary days, for the cause. The French-German style of directing and the artistic depiction of the decade is of the most excellent appeal. Édgar Ramírez who played Carlos is the main highlight for without his strong acting presence the movie/mini series would be have been just average. A must watch.

The story was interesting and worth the watch. Despite the disclaimers that stated fictitious characters were introduced in the movie and some events or parts of them were also fictionalized for artistic content, I like to think as I'm sure many others will, that it did not matter; we get a sense of what terrorism at the time, the 70's and 80's, was probably like. The movie has a lot of action scenes, a plus. It had too many solo nude scenes of the character Carlos. My guess is the director(s) tried to convey the narcissistic side of the man; I can't rule out that possibility. I would have preferred he had some of the women Carlos was famous for seducing into his world of violence, with him in the nude scenes. Édgar Ramírez did okay with the character of Carlos, but I think that had the direction of the movie been better quality, Ramirez would have provided a much better performance. The editing was sloppy and almost amateurish, I'm sorry to say. It won't spoil your enjoyment of the movie but if you watched the two part series "Mesrine", you can see the difference better editing and direction can do.