Saturday, August 6, 2011

Dominic Cooper "doubles"Up

Full disclosure: we haven't yet seen The Devil's Double in entirety, but we hav seen it in sufficient measure (diverse clips, excerpts, interviews) to offer the following:

This is a breakout role for lead actor Dominic Cooper, who essentially plays two cahacters and three personas, namely former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's misanthropic, sex- crazed son Uday, Latif Wahia, the army lieutenant who is "co-opted" into being body-double, or fiday ( translates as "bullet catcher" ) for Uday, and of course, he plays Wahia playing Uday.

This compelling real-life conundrum -the film's based on Wahia's memoirs - becomes an equally compelling, if gleefully over-the-top entertainment in the hands of the experienced yet mercurial Lee (Once Were Warriors); the audience sees the full scope of Uday's "take anything, kill anyone" ethos, and the inner moral conflict that Wahia faces in doing the bidding of such a reprehensible individual.

Of course, there's enough sex, violence and intrigue to satisfy the escapist in all of us, bit this is primarily a story about obsession, and it's limits.

As Uday says to his new fiday, "I will never let you go."

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