His father’s son.
The H-Bomb: It’s the late 1980’s, and Iraqi Soldier Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper) has been summoned to Uday Hussein’s office for a mysterious assignment. They went to school together way back in the day, but he has no idea what Uday could want with him now, except that he does bear an uncanny resemblance to the Iraqi leader’s son. Aside from the fact that Latif is three centimeters shorter, his eyes are a little different, and that “his cock is too big,” he is a virtual dead ringer. So, Uday makes Latif an offer he can’t refuse, to become his double. And it literally is an offer Latif cannot refuse, since Uday will have him imprisoned and his family killed if he refuses.
Latif himself will have to disappear completely. He’ll never be allowed to see or speak to his family again. That kind of stinks, but, there are perks to the job; he’ll be living in Uday’s palaces, wearing his designer suits, his Rolex watches, driving his sports cars… everything, except fucking his women. That is the one thing Uday is not willing to share with him. Although, Uday’s favorite play thing, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier), does take a liking to Latif, and comes onto him accordingly.
Uday treats him like a brother, and takes him practically everywhere he goes. It’s during these wildly decadent excursions to nightclubs and private parties that Latif gets to see the very ugly side of Baghdad’s most spoiled brat; the drinking, the drugs, the raping, and the spontaneous killing of anyone who crosses him. Latif’s new job becomes even less appealing when its real purpose surfaces, to act as a decoy for would be assassins.
Latif decides that he’s had enough of the insanity that this psycho Uday calls a life and starts to think about his escape. But that could be tricky, since Uday has told him “You’re mine now… and I’ll never let you go.” And he means it, too. Sucks to be Latif.
Saddam Hussein was a fucking monster. No sane person is going to deny that. But as bad as he was, his eldest son, Uday, was even worse. He’d pick up a 14 year-old schoolgirl, drug her up, and screw her. He’d rape a woman during her wedding reception, then laugh as she commits suicide by jumping off the balcony. He’d carve someone up with a knife then shoot them in the face, just for the fuck of it. And he would do it all while sitting in his lavish, gold crusted office, snorting absurd amounts of cocaine, just like a Middle Eastern Tony Montana, only more manic and less quotable.
That, ultimately, is what “The Devil’s Double” is. Not a political drama, or a docu-drama, but a gangster film. One that is highly stylized, larger than life, and, by director Lee Tamahori’s admission, plays fast and loose with the facts. Much of the specific incidents depicted are made up, but the essence of the kind of cretin that was Uday Hussein is conveyed quite accurately. He was a gangster who didn’t have to worry about the law, because he was the law. “God gives me nothing. If I see something I want, I just take it” was his motto, and that is what he did, pretty much with complete impunity, the occasional scolding from daddy aside. The film makes no bones about it, Uday was slime.
The main reason to see “The Devil’s Double”, and it very much makes it worth seeing, is the tremendous dual performance from Dominic Cooper. This is an instance where I forgot I was watching the same actor play both roles. Between the slight differences in appearance, and their different voices (that’s two accents he employed), I just accepted that I was watching two different people. His Uday is a lunatic man-child who is always jacked up, wired, and ready to blow at any moment, while his Latif is a calm, sane, decent man just trying to cope with the madness around him.
Another thing to consider is that Cooper also has the task of playing Latif playing Uday, which we get to see him practice in the mirror, in an amusing bit. This was a very demanding task, the kind that any real actor dreams of undertaking, and Cooper delivers. It is a truly great pair of performances, and I know I say this a lot, but it’s a pair of performances that is very much deserving of award recognition (which it shamefully probably won’t get).
Director Tamahori, who nearly sunk the James Bond franchise with the abysmal “Die Another Day”, wholly redeems himself here. He fills the picture with stylish, vibrant visuals and keeps it moving at a brisk, energetic pace, giving the film the look and feel of a Scorsese mob flick. He also doesn’t shy away from the utter brutality of the story, making the violence visceral, bloody, and never letting us forget what a sadistic fuck Uday was. I haven’t seen Tamahori’s much lauded debut, “Once Were Warriors”, but of the films of his I have seen, this is easily the most impressive.
In fact, I would consider this a great film, if it wasn’t for one little thing that kept nagging me throughout; the way Latif acts towards Uday. Throughout the whole film, Latif doesn’t even attempt to mask his contempt for Uday, often talking back to him, insulting him, and even in one instance, slugging him. I find it highly unlikely that Uday would have put up with this. Yeah, Latif was the best double he could find. Yeah, he wanted to embrace him like a brother, but he was a Kurd, for Christ’s sake! Not to mention, Uday was the kind of guy who would kill people for looking at him the wrong way, so would he really have tolerated this kind of crap from Latif? I think not.
That one hang up of mine aside, I would say that “The Devil’s Double” is one solid picture. It’s certainly far more entertaining than I would expect a movie about Saddam’s number one son to be, and a lot funnier, as Uday is often made to look like a clownish buffoon. I must confess that I’m not sure what exactly the point, or the moral, was supposed to be, other than it’s just a damn interesting story. It shouldn’t be taken as a history lesson or a biography, since again, many, many liberties were taken, but sure does make for one fascinating watch.
