'The Devil's Double'

'The Devil's Double' (R) (2 STARS)

Writer: Michael Thomas based on novel by Latif Yahia
Director: Lee Tamahori
Starring: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Phillip Quast, Raad Rawi

"The Devil's Double" starts out promising but then devolves into a self indulgent mess. The subject matter is somewhat fascinating but the movie just became too dull for me and seemed to go nowhere. It is a shame that the movie crumbles in the end because Dominic Cooper gives a brave performance that could have turned out to be campy and embarrassing if performed wrong.

Cooper plays both Uday Hussein, the sadistic son of Saddam Hussein and Uday's college friend Latif. Uday convinces Latif, mostly through torture and threats to become Uday's double. This way Uday can escape danger if his many enemies try to kill him. Latif then is forced to take part in Uday's evil acts and excess. They include rapes, kidnapping children, taking a lot of cocaine and butchering men. I was very entertained by Dominic Cooper's performance and I found the beginning amusing but after awhile the story goes nowhere.

The movie is kind of a "Scarface" lite especially in the many shots of Uday inhaling cocaine and the over the top violence. The women in this movie are non existant especially the lead female role played awkwardly by Ludivine Sagnier. It is a thinly written role and every scene she is in doesn't gel with the reat of the movie. Dominic Cooper has been good in small roles until now like "An Education" and "Mamma Mia!" I was impressed with his work here and it could have been a camp performance but I felt he was very believable here.

Cooper's performance is very good but the movie fails him. After about 45 minutes I started not to care even when Latif's father is brought into the story. The movie just becomes monotonous with blood, gore and dull violence. In the end I didn't care what happened to Latif or anyone else because the movie never lets us in. The director is Lee Tamahori who showed so much promise with his first movie. That was one of the most powerful and gut wrenching movies I have ever encountered called "Once Were Warriors". This and his other follow up, the excruciating "Mullholland Falls". are a dissapointment coming from a very talented director. "The Devil's Double" wastes a lot of good talent on a pointless exercise in nihilism.