-
Recent releases:
- Jericho Ridge
- Civil War
- Mothers' Instinct
- Sweet East, The
- Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire
- Immaculate
- Roaring Twenties, The (reissue)
- Soul
- Dune: part two
- American Star
- Dune: Part 1 (reissue)
- Jerry & Marge Go Large
- Argylle
- Forever Young
- Jackdaw
- All of Us Strangers
- Holdovers, The
- Mean Girls
- Poor Things
- One Life
Devil's Double, The
Stars: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Mimoun Oaissa, Raad Rawi, Philip Quast, Khalid Laith
Director: Lee Tamahori
West, who deserves credit for surviving the cute-as-a-kitten kitsch that was Alan Bennetts awesomely overrated schooldays fantasy The History Boys, delivers an astonishing double performance as Saddam Hussains seriously psychotic son Uday and as his luckless lookalike Iraqi Latif Yahi who was chosen to assume the role of Udays body double or see his family slaughtered.
The good news for Latif is that he gets to share Udays hedonistic life style of sex, drugs and astounding luxury. The rest is bad news as Latif suffers mightily apart from a somewhat less-than convincing romance with Sagnier, one of Udays many mistresses.
Fact doesnt appear to have been a major preoccupation of scenarist Michael Thomas who has used the strange saga of the dubious double as the basis for a tough, viscerally violent thriller decorated with scarifying sadism and gangster-movie influenced nastiness. Saddam Hussain, for example, is portrayed more as a worried parent than the evil psychopath he really was.
While it is patently amoral and probably rather less historically accurate than, say, Carry on Henry, The Devils Double, directed for all its worth by former Bond helmer Tamahori, packs a surprisingly potent punch.
Alan Frank
USA 2011. UK Distributor: Icon. Colour.
108 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 2, Swearing 3.
Review date: 20 Aug 2011