Look at that badass poster. Shame the movie didn't live up to it. With all due respect to Dominic Cooper, who valiantly played dual roles in this, The Devil's Double just fell short, plain and simple.Latif Yahia (Cooper) is an Iraqi soldier who is called off the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War to become the new body double for Uday Hussein (also Cooper). It's not a role Latif is eager to play but reluctantly takes the job after some persuasion (i.e. torture). Latif undergoes various tests and procedures to make sure he resembles Uday as closely as possible. Once complete, Latif can now witness firsthand the life of a madman. Uday Hussein is a sex-crazed psychopath that will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if that means leaving his desires dead on the side of the road. And Latif had better help in this manner because there's really no telling how Uday could react. As for official business, Latif does all of that. Uday is too powerful (i.e. lazy) to be seen in public giving official orders or commands. Eventually, one particular order is too much for Latif and his relationship with Uday unravels quickly.
Dominic Cooper really does do a good job playing both parts. It could have easily come off as stunt-casting, but managed to veer away from that pretty soon after the movie began. Unfortunately, the film itself just undid itself. The plot was too quick to really get connected to some of the characters and the graphics were a little choppy at parts. Plus, while you can tell it takes part around the Gulf War, the movie's timeline appears skewed a bit even though it's actually going in chronological order. I really wanted to like this, but it's just too flat. Grade: C
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