“Guess my favourite colour…”
It is an invidious position to be in when the boss says he has a job for you, and you don’t want the job. Worse when the boss is proven right, worse still when your refusal will result in your death and the death of your entire family.
It is 1990 in Iraq, and the Kuwait situation is nearing a flashpoint, thanks to bullying and violence perpetrated by the Saddam Hussein lead Iraqi government. With widespread civil unrest the more recognisable leaders take to finding themselves lookalikes to stand in for public appearances with too much exposure, lest someone try to make a name for themselves by taking them down.
So when Udday Saddam Hussein – one of Saddam’s two sons – taps former childhood friend Latif to be his double, Latif is understandably reluctant. On the one hand being a double is a full time job with friends in high places. On the other, Udday is already a much loathed figure and therefore a target of hatred, oh and the refusal will kill his family thing.
Furthermore, once a double, all previous identities are scrubbed from the record, meaning the one known as Latif effectively no longer exists, and his family must assume him dead.
While Latif certainly looks the part – both characters are played by Dominic Cooper – it will take some training to develop the behaviours. Udday is a man in his late 20s who has never been told no. he is spoilt, petulant, impulsive, temperamental, volatile and seemingly immune from all reprisals. So long as he doesn’t do anything to piss off his dad – who has some other matters on his plate what with the United States threatening war – Udday does what he wants.
But these are hardly just your average rapper hijinks, Udday is perpetually drunk and high, but can, and does, rape, murder and more. He is an amoral person in a turbulent time, with the humble and principled Latif looking on.
To an extent Latif has a cushy position, aside from standing around at boring ceremonies hoping today is not the day to get assassinated that is, he can look at, appreciate and enjoy Udday’s stuff. And he has a lot of stuff. But he can never touch certain stuff. It is when Latif catches the eye of one of Udday’s ‘go-to’ women, that his long term position becomes untenable.
It is not an easy film to enjoy with the violence and sexual misconduct being borne of a recent enough reality – watching Udday trawl the streets for underage schoolgirls is a heinous and troubling experience – but the film is well made and compelling, and Dominic Cooper does well at performing double duty and for the most part making you think he is still two different guys.
The Devil’s Double is essentially the tale of a corrupt and morally bankrupt land as told within the portrait of one of its key figures. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the politics, Udday as shown here was a disgusting human being indeed, and a warning as to how things can go wrong when unchecked.
Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. The only ‘double’ film (Enemy. The Double.) of the last couple years that isn’t some sort of examination of the subconscious.
