The Devil's Double

The Devil’s Double (2011)

56% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 85 reviews)

Runtime: 109 minutes

Directed by: Lee Tamahori

Starring: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi, Philip Quast

From: Corsan

Here’s a movie in limited release that I’ve seen on the big screen (the first one I’ve seen on the big screen that wasn’t a one-off screening since The Hangover Part II; yes, it’s been that long for me, as not much this summer has interested a strange character like me; I plan on seeing more films on the big screen the rest of 2011) that also happens to be a foreign one, from Belgium of all places.

This is a true story (well, it actually happened in real life; how true the storyteller was and how much of his story made it to the screen will be less than 100%; how much so, who knows) about how Uday Hussein found a near-identical person, Latif, (both played by Cooper; he does a great job of making the two characters vastly different) and forced him to be his “double”, meaning that he impersonated Uday during dangerous situations where Uday thought he could be a target for assassination. Otherwise, he claimed that Latif was his brother. As Uday was a drug-crazed maniac who did things like snatch underaged schoolgirls from the street and rape them, Latif did not enjoy this arrangement too much, understandably. Meanwhile, he and Uday’s lady, Sarrab (Sagnier) begin to fall for each other…

While I can understand why some critics would be turned off by how trashy and violent this movie ended up being, I managed to enjoy it for those aspects (except for the more extreme stuff, like the whippings and torture you see) and as I didn’t know anything about the true story I was genuinely interested in how it turned out and how Latif could escape such a horrible situation. As I’ve heard elsewhere, this seemed to be modeled on the 80’s Scarface in how Uday acted like a madman out of control-him sniffing large amounts of coke was not the only clue that led people to think this-but his actions also reminded people of Caligula, and as someone who’s seen that wacked-out movie before, that’s an understandable comparison, especially with one scene in both movies involving a new bride. In fact, I’m liable to think that director Tamahori took some aspects from both movies and added them here as a homage; at least I’ll say “homage” instead of “rip-off”. I mean, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t too many trannies in Baghdad and he added them to the story due to the director’s own issues with transsexuality, which I’m sure also explains why he’s making movies in Belgium instead of Hollywood.

By the way, I don’t know if the discotheques of Baghdad had people mainly dress in the same 80’s clothes that most of the club-goers at U.S. digs did while You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) and Relax blasted through the sound systems, but indeed in this movie you had two scenes involving those songs and those tunes worked well for the scenes, even if it was total BS from Tamahori when it comes to historical accuracy. But anyway, this story makes Saddam (Quast) almost look good in comparison!

If you don’t care too much about 100% historical accuracy and you want to watch a gaudy yet still interesting story concerning some loathsome subjects, then you should check out this tale.

I’ll be back Monday night.