Director: Lee Tamahori
Cast: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi
Running time: 108m
Synopsis: ‘A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein’s sadistic son.’
Long before THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE release date, the film has already been slapped with the debasing brand of ‘SCARFACE of Arabia’. The film focuses on the alleged story of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi who was forcibly made to ‘extinguish himself’, faking his death to become the double of Uday Hussein. Set in the 1980s when Saddam’s oppressive regime was at its peak, THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE is coloured with fast cars, fat cigars and Middle Eastern opulence. The high-speed trailer and liquid gold poster reflect the film’s trashier elements, and given that director Lee Tamahori is known for vacuous shoot em ups NEXT and XXX: 2, many will walk away from what is in fact, a gritty and powerful movie.
Dominic Cooper reaches lofty expectations by taking on the role of both characters, but, to fuel the movie with the sensationalism it needed to survive, Tamahori has chose the insanity of Uday as the centrepiece of his story. Cooper uses every shred of energy to channel Uday’s madness: the high-pitched voice, the good looks ruined by his comical chompers, the evil distain for others. Uday is more of a cartoon Frank Booth than a powerful Tony Montana. He bounces around like a pillaging Pepe le Pue, raping and destroying everything in his path, “Everything I want – I just take for myself” he says behind his buck toothed grin.
It is no secret that the real son of Saddam was brutal madman, famed for firing AK47 at dinner parties, his salacious appetite for young girls, and the frenzied murder of his father’s close friend. However, Tamahori’s depiction of Latif as a moralistic innocent powerlessly watching Uday’s actions is only giving a fraction of the story. In an interview with Irish journalist Eoin Butler in 2008, the real Latif Yahia revealed himself less than saintly, and his chronological inaccuracies called into question the credibility of his story. But the black and white villain/hero approach is a much more accessible vein for Tamahori to take.
Aside from the predictable gangland tack of Uday shooting at the ceiling and snorting cocaine from a golden dagger, Tamahori is surprisingly brave when opening the audience window into the horrors of Saddam’s torture tactics. Tamahori uses real footage of Saddam’s victims, and is unrelenting as images of pulled teeth and water torture fill the screen. The violence is brilliantly offset by comically gaudy scenes of Uday revelling with transvestites, reeling in the 80s. To the homoerotic sounds of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus, Uday pulls Latif in close, “I own you Latif, I will never let you go.”
Stylistically, Tamahori manages to transform the Malta set into a believable Bagdad, and his split screen effects for his double act are near untraceable. And, as many will go on to repeat – Dominic Cooper has created two tangibly different characters – you will forget it is the same man. With his best known role being a crooning love interest in Mamma Mia! This film will do for Cooper what THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND did for James McAvoy, and no one deserves it more.
What’s interesting about THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE is Tamahori’s purposeful decision to scarcely include Saddam Hussein. Played by Philip Quast, Saddam is monosyllabic for all his three scenes, making his presence all the more terrifying. There is a darkness that surrounds those few moments, one that captures the controlled evil, offering stark contrast to the unhinged behaviour of Uday. Even in silence, commands the scene, seizing his son’s testicles with a machete in hand.
The main downfall is the threadbare ‘romance’ between Latif and Sareb, a ‘damsel in distress’ love interest ‘belonging’ to Uday. Sareb, played by French actress Ludivine Sagnier, adopts a distracting accent is curiously VAN HELSING. Sagnier’s performance is dwarfed by Cooper’s, verging on awkward as her character is denied the chance to move beyond ‘eye-candy’ territory.
A lingering, sinister story that cuts close to the bone. Don’t be deterred by the FAST AND FURIOUS wrapping, THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE may not be a dense political biopic, but it’s a visceral thriller that’s not to be missed. Out tomorrow, 10th August. See the trailer below:
