The first film to tell (part of) the story of the US-Iraq war from the Iraqi side, when it was fashionable to have a double - Saddam Hussein and his son Uday both had them.
Slightly improbable was the fact that Uday Hussein met his double at school, and they lived their very different lives until Uday decided to pluck Latif Yahia from the relative obscurity of the Iraqi Army to be schooled and molded as his twin.
Uday needed this twin, to represent the regime while he was coked up and drunk in some other part of Baghdad. While he went about his unhinged life, raping and murdering whoever he chose, Latif was forced to dress like Uday, and do the things Uday didn't want to do.
I'm not sure how representative the film was of life in 1990s Iraq, but for everyone around Uday Hussein it must've been one scary place.
A fantastic performance from Dominic Cooper. In playing both roles, he had to switch from normal human being to screaming, psychopathic monster in a couple of seconds. I know my wife manages that regularly, but she has me to help her whip up that alter ego. I don't know how Cooper did it.
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