***SPOILERS*** A bit overcomplicated and confusing spy thriller involving US Navy Lt. Commander Cuban born Annibal Ramirez, Adian Quinn, who's recruited with a little bit of arm twisting by the CIA and Israeli Mossad to play the part of Carlos the Jackel in that Annibal is the spitting image of the notorious assassin. Behind all this cloak and dagger stuff is Paris CIA Director Jack Shaw, Donald Southerland, who has it in Carlos for strictly personal reasons! That's when back in September 1974 Carlos, disguised as a 1960's type of hippie, slipped right through his fingers and ended up blowing up a Paris café with Shaw, who survived the blast, being in it!
Shaw with the help of Mossad Agent Amos,Ben Kingley, teach Ramirez all about Carlos' quirks and habits as well as his style, rough to the point of almost killing his partner, of lovemaking and send him out to Libya in a plot to have him make his backers, the Soviet KGB, think that he's about to turn on them and join the other side": The USA and its Western allies! This all has Ramirez end up killing a number of French Secret Agents, who raided his love nest, who mistakenly think that he's Carlos.
Carlos himself in thinking he's being set up has one of his henchman Japanese assassin Koj, Von Flores, travel to Paris to knock off his girlfriend Agnieska, Liliana Komorowaka, who mistook Ramirez for himself whom Carlos feels betrayed him to the French Secret Service. Ramirez together with Shaw and Amos who just happened to be in Paris at the time of Agnieska's murder is later confronted by Koj who realizes, by Ramirez not knowing the right code word, that he isn't Carlos who then takes him, with a gun pointed in his gut, to a airport mens-room in order to knock him off! It's then that Amos comes to Ramirez's rescue by not only taking out the surprised Koj but taking a bullet or two for him at the same time!
***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Meamwhile the KGB smells a rat in Carlos in him suspected of working for American intelligence,the CIA, and raid his pad outside East Berlin in order to take him in for questioning. This lead to a free for all shootout at Carlos', who was buff naked at the time, love pad where he's later run down by Ramirez who together with his boss Shaw were outside watching the whole spectacle. With both Carlos & Ramirez slugging it out Shaw not knowing which is which ends up shooting and seriously wounding the wrong man, Ramirez, with Carlos, now with his clothes on, getting away!
The film ends in a confusing note with Ramirez now fully recovered from his wounds back in the states reunited with his wife and young son and Carlos now a man not only without a country but wanted by his former employers the KGB who've got a 50 million dollar or ruble contract out on him. We've still got a big surprise coming at the end the movie that's not at all lacking in surprises but by the time it hits us were just too numb or punch-drunk,in all the surprises we've already seen, to both notice or appreciate it!
Shaw with the help of Mossad Agent Amos,Ben Kingley, teach Ramirez all about Carlos' quirks and habits as well as his style, rough to the point of almost killing his partner, of lovemaking and send him out to Libya in a plot to have him make his backers, the Soviet KGB, think that he's about to turn on them and join the other side": The USA and its Western allies! This all has Ramirez end up killing a number of French Secret Agents, who raided his love nest, who mistakenly think that he's Carlos.
Carlos himself in thinking he's being set up has one of his henchman Japanese assassin Koj, Von Flores, travel to Paris to knock off his girlfriend Agnieska, Liliana Komorowaka, who mistook Ramirez for himself whom Carlos feels betrayed him to the French Secret Service. Ramirez together with Shaw and Amos who just happened to be in Paris at the time of Agnieska's murder is later confronted by Koj who realizes, by Ramirez not knowing the right code word, that he isn't Carlos who then takes him, with a gun pointed in his gut, to a airport mens-room in order to knock him off! It's then that Amos comes to Ramirez's rescue by not only taking out the surprised Koj but taking a bullet or two for him at the same time!
***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Meamwhile the KGB smells a rat in Carlos in him suspected of working for American intelligence,the CIA, and raid his pad outside East Berlin in order to take him in for questioning. This lead to a free for all shootout at Carlos', who was buff naked at the time, love pad where he's later run down by Ramirez who together with his boss Shaw were outside watching the whole spectacle. With both Carlos & Ramirez slugging it out Shaw not knowing which is which ends up shooting and seriously wounding the wrong man, Ramirez, with Carlos, now with his clothes on, getting away!
The film ends in a confusing note with Ramirez now fully recovered from his wounds back in the states reunited with his wife and young son and Carlos now a man not only without a country but wanted by his former employers the KGB who've got a 50 million dollar or ruble contract out on him. We've still got a big surprise coming at the end the movie that's not at all lacking in surprises but by the time it hits us were just too numb or punch-drunk,in all the surprises we've already seen, to both notice or appreciate it!