The Devil's Double – review

Right now, James Corden is getting rave reviews for his dual stage performance in One Man, Two Guvnors at London's National theatre. As it happens, his History Boys classmate Dominic Cooper is giving his own doppelgänger turn in this movie set at the time of the Gulf war in 1990. Cooper plays Saddam Hussein's pampered son Uday and also Uday's horrified body double Latif Yahia, in a gruesomely violent, toweringly unsubtle, fantastically crass but watchable thriller, inspired by DePalma's Scarface, with a touch of Bond villainy. Everywhere there is dodgy faux-marble and the gleam of gold plate. Cooper's Saddam Jr is a gap-toothed momma's boy, bully, murderer, rapist and cokehead, surrounded by sycophants, but terrified of assassination, hence the need for a double. Yahia is a less interesting character: tough, unimpressed, disgusted by Uday's crimes, but not extravagantly so. The obvious way for the plot to go would be for Yahia to get to like being Uday, and even to like Uday himself. But these internal dramas are not explored. This isn't exactly a complex study of Iraqi history, but director Lee Tamahori punches it across, and the Stalinesque use of doubles in Iraq is interesting. The tyrant is pathetic, wishing to see only his own reflection wherever he goes.