Carlos review

Made for TV but dynamic enough to deserve its big-screen berth, Olivier Assayas’ bio-epic powers through the career of Venezuela-born Ilichr Ramírez Sánchez (Édgar Ramírez), AKA Carlos, one of the most notorious terrorists of the ’70s and ’80s.

It’s the story of how the militant revolutionary, who led the raid on Vienna’s OPEC headquarters in 1975 on behalf of the Palestinian Liberation Front, was to become a mercenary, paid by Soviet bloc and Middle Eastern regimes.

Given it’s been hacked down from a 330-minute version (weekend showings were on the cards at press time), Carlos inevitably feels disjointed in its final hour.

But the ambition, scope and drive impress greatly, as does Ramírez, who nails his character’s fascinating contradictions