The Devil's Double

I will be honest, when I heard that Dominic Cooper was playing both Uday Hussein and Latif Yahia in The Devil's Double, I wasn't sure what to think. Could somebody who had been in Mama Mia! really play such different characters? The surprising answer is yes.

The film is about Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday who enlists (or rather coerces) former classmate Yahia to be his body-double. Uday is a particularly unpleasant individual who regularly partakes in the raping of women and murder of anyone who crosses him. Yahia is portrayed as someone who stands up to Uday and refuses to carry out some of his orders particularly on the occasions that Uday asked him to commit murder. The love interest is shoe-horned in by Sarrub (Ludivine Sagnier) who is a favourite of Uday's, but is more interested in Yahia.

Cooper is excellent in this film and he has shown that he is capable of taking on roles which are diverse and not within his normal range and fully deserves the credit and hopefully potential award nominations that should go his way. My problems with the film firstly start with that there is no real attempt to explain why Uday is the psychopath that he is and because of this there is a real lack of depth in the film. There is an insinuation that his relationship with his mother could be a reason for his madness, but this is barely touched upon and could have been explored. There were several scenes in the film where Uday is played to comedic effect, then goes on to commit appalling crimes; this disrupted the flow of the film somewhat and I'm sure the director wouldn't have wanted to hear the ripples of laughter that were in the screening I attended.

Another issue is that the film is based on Yahia's book and not historical fact, nor has it been verified by other sources. The writers have acknowledged that they embellished elements of the story to make the film. I would be interested to know more about whether the relationship between Yahia and Sarrub actually existed as it seems implausible that Sarrub would risk her life for Yahia. I also don't believe that Yahia was involved in the assassination attempt on Uday, simply because it doesn't make sense. Essentially I couldn't buy that Yahia was the hero that he's made out in this film.

Verdict - An entertaining and interesting film which gives a fascinating insight into the life of someone who was quite mad on power, at a time when very little was known about the regime. Cooper is a revelation and I sincerely hope that he reaps the rewards that he thoroughly deserves.