Review of The Devil's Double (2011) by Maclinda — 07 Aug 2011

I will go to see it again in the cinema.

I was lucky enough to see this movie the day it opened, great acting by Dominic Cooper! And the supporting cast were strong also, Munem Hammed played by Raad Rawi was powerful but subtle in his portrayal of Latif Yahia's trainer, a "good man in a bad job" as the film puts it. I thought that Philip Quast really looked the part of Saddam, probably the best one I have seen to date, amazingly he looks absolutely nothing like that in reality and has a fantastic career on Stage with a huge following, but then that is the magic of movies isn't it? I loved the whole look of the movie itself and the sound track was full of great '80's hits, plus I have to give Wardrobe a big thumbs up for the shiny suits and OTT dresses, I had forgotten how big and bold everything was then. I think that there will be a lot of talk about this movie, people saying it should have gone further or stuck rigidly to the facts and others saying it has too much, it's a personal thing I suppose. One thing I will say is that I enjoyed it thoroughly, it hit all the right marks for me, if I wanted accurate information on Iraq I'd watch the History channel, this is a movie, even the guy (Latif Yahia) whose life story it's based on has said "hey, it's a movie", but don't let that fool you into thinking you can walk away from it without having to think about the reality of that situation and what you or I would have done in the Double's place.