{"id":15764,"date":"2011-09-21T21:19:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T05:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15764"},"modified":"2011-09-22T11:07:11","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T19:07:11","slug":"the-devils-double-lee-tamahori-2011-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15764","title":{"rendered":"The Devil’s Double (Lee Tamahori, 2011): UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at Fiesta 5, Santa Barbara, CA.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Uday Hussein (Dominic Cooper), Latif Yahia (also Dominic Cooper) is recruited from\u00a0 Iraq’s military to perform as The Devil’s Double<\/a><\/em>; body double for Saddam Hussein’s iniquitous firstborn.<\/p>\n

Latif is a well-bred young\u00a0man from an\u00a0honorable local\u00a0family, while Uday is a spoilt, compulsive neurotic, who snorts coke, abuses women, and is a little too in touch with his feelings\u00a0towards his mother; he is evil incarnate.<\/p>\n

Repulsed by threats against his family, Latif reluctantly agrees to undergo minor plastic surgery and dental procedures as part of a grooming process, in addition to mastering an act of\u00a0conversely erratic and flamboyant behavior.<\/p>\n

Uday compulsively abducts young girls for pleasure, then brutalizes them and eliminates the\u00a0evidence.\u00a0 He kills at whim anyone he finds annoying, including his father’s favorite food tester\/bodyguard, as well as\u00a0the accusing\u00a0father of one of his victims.\u00a0\u00a0Bearing witness to these criminal actions, Latif must double\u00a0while Uday is on a bender, or during a potentially dangerous political appearance.<\/p>\n

Latif quickly has his fill of Uday,\u00a0and in order to escape the madness, he must ally himself with one of Uday’s many available women.<\/p>\n

While the film is gripping from beginning to end, there are a few weak spots.\u00a0\u00a0Namely, the story relies heavily on character development, and equally gives so much, yet so little – we are given vague examples of the work of the famed body doubles.\u00a0 Likewise, situations occur which hint at Uday’s homosexuality and kinky relationship with his beloved mama, but remain shadowy at best.<\/p>\n

Dominic Cooper’s dual performance\u00a0of protagonist and antagonist is absolutely superb, and one of the best so far for 2011 – you might remember him as Howard Stark from Captain America:\u00a0 The First Avenger – <\/em>for this reason the film is worth viewing, and Tamahori must be given credit for his part.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at Fiesta 5, Santa Barbara, CA. \u00a0 Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Uday Hussein (Dominic Cooper), Latif Yahia (also Dominic Cooper) is recruited from\u00a0 Iraq’s military to perform as The Devil’s Double; body double for Saddam Hussein’s iniquitous firstborn. Latif is a well-bred young\u00a0man from an\u00a0honorable local\u00a0family, while Uday is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}