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.

The acting in this IFC miniseries had me all hot and bothered, like Id never even realized that I secretly desired the life of a female Carlos. Activist, radical, terrorist, devoted to the cause no matter the cost. After watching the 3 parts, I found myself most turned on, titillated even by the first installment, so maybe slightly let down while watching the other two you may think.......well not at all. I was so impassioned, moved,and fully aroused by the bravado of Carlos, that I was enthralled by every following moment.Being only slightly intelligent and 31 with some major arrested development, I didn't know about Carlos. But what I found was cinematography, style, art direction, scripting and a lucuios soundtrack that had me at full attention within the first 10 mins. Where is my big sexy Latin man to rub guns against my crotch?

This 3 part series follows the "career" of Carlos from about 1973 to 1994. A psychopathic killer and terrorist leader he was responsible for a rash of bombings and assassinations for various groups mainly Palestinian causes. He was finally captured in Sudan in 1994.The movie is nicely filmed with period details adhered to. It seems to have been mostly filmed in Beirut with that venue passing for Tripoli Algiers etc... in any case it is convincing.What struck me is that the 911 attacks were nothing new...terrorists in the 1970s were taking OPEC ministers hostage blowing up planes etc... I am cynical enough to wonder why now there has to be trillions spent on the war on terror...seems they managed back then with out doing that. The military industrial complex needed a new threat after the cold war ended.Another flaw is the group is made to seem almost chic in their running from country to country. But that is minor.It is pretty good if you need to kill 6 hours.

I caught a glimpse of it on Sundance Channel here in the US and ended up watching the whole piece as a 3-episode series.Thanks to Sundance for showing it un-cut and un-edited, it really shows their respect for the efforts of film makers, and as an audience I really appreciate being able to watch it as the director intended it.Really love the story, you can tell Olivier Assayas did a really thorough job in his research. As many reviews said, it's historical facts+real news footage+some fictional imagination, but all of them combined made a great story.Only one small detail I found amusing: the actual event of the attack on OPEC in Vienna took place in December, but they must have filmed it in the summer because one can tell the city is so GREEN in the background; as someone who has lived in Vienna that was simply impossible in winter. But please don't get me wrong, this small detail does not change the fact that this is one of the best movies I've ever seen.