Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Really Surprised!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Reviewed May 2012It neither has the subtlety nor the attention to detail one might expect of a biopic and runs along as a thrill ride concocted from the mind of some over-the-top fiction writer where the focus is more on the sleazy and gory details than the emotional side of its characters. But the last word is that it entertains. Uday Saddam Hussein (Dominic Cooper) needs no introduction as his reputation is well documented. What this movie intends to show is the perspective of his Fiday (body double), Latif Yahia (also played by Dominic Cooper). In the monarchical Iraq where eccentric Uday has no bounds to his sadistic ways, Latif a soldier of the Republican Guard is identified and offered a position as his body double without a choice. Uday and his team introduces Latif to an ultra luxurious lifestyle with quite a few tight strings attached. Latif is forbidden to contact his family and soon grows tired of Uday's antics and atrocities. All along, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) a mistress Uday is quite fond of gets close to Latif and both dreams of life free from Uday's clutches. One day, Latif thinks enough is enough and does the unthinkable and the consequences are supposed to be history. The script definitely would have taken the liberty of manipulating quite a few facts for dramatic or commercial or fill-in-the-blank purposes and anyone watching the movie for historical accuracy may get disappointed. Where it succeeds is the flamboyance with which Dominic Cooper portrays the eccentric Uday Hussein and the same measured held back performance while playing Latif. Also it induces quite a few comic touches and add in a lot of nudity, vulgarity and gore the elements that are closely associated with Uday and they are the same elements that makes a product commercially viable too. No major incident reported in the history is handled with the gravity of its impact instead takes the spectacle route. Certain facts are contrived and some emotions are just laughable for a biopic, but hey who knows what was cooking in Uday's mind, he might have reacted in the exact same way. Uday was shown mostly as an immature, mindless nut with a lot of comic histrionics and unpredictable temper. There is a pattern here as I have seen a BBC biography on Uday which is handled in the exact same way as this movie, a contrast with the rest of their work. Having said all that, what finally mattered was its ability to grab my attention by bribing me with guilty fun. Do not watch it for serious cinema, there is a lighter side to the worst of elements.

How dumb am I #1: I waited for the credits to find out who played Uday - great performance. Then I saw it was the same actor as Latif. OMG! Amazing.How dumb am I #2: I thought this was a true story, so in the final scenes in Malta and the bazaar I was thinking "unlikely, but such is life".It's a good thriller and character study. Uday is like Caligula, but Latif is a bit dull. The girlfriend seemed a bit random, especially in the end. And the sex and violence should have been more explicit - instead it's quite tasteful.Loved the music all the way through.Overall I think this is a bit simple, because it should have had more interesting things to say on identity and used the doubleness to explore the story.

I recorded this off the TV not expecting much and got round to watching it yesterday. Wow! I was not expecting this! This is certainly not for the faint-hearted mind. Dominic Cooper is mesmerising in his roles here and I don't think I was the only one that could not believe, on the film ending, that he actually played both roles...brilliant performance. And when I actually found out that most of this is based on the truth or certainly near to it that made it even better for me.Its fascinating because although the dialogue is all English, it doesn't feel like a US/UK film at all. I think they did the right thing in doing the dialogue all in English overall even though doing it in the native language/dialect would have been interesting as well.If you like The Godfather, Scarface, gangster films but want to see a bit of reality as well give this film a go. I have just ordered the Blu-ray so I can watch and hear it in HD which Im sure will make it even better. Its not one of my favourite films but its a solid 8/10 no problem and that makes it a buy for me.

I did not expect to enjoy this film. I decided to give it a go as a way of increasing my knowledge of the world and recent past events (or rather decreasing my ignorance), but then got so much more out of it.The basic premise reminded me of The Parent Trap. Not so surprisingly, however, Cooper does a much better job than Lohan of keeping each character distinct. Our warmth towards Latif grows in the same measure as our disgust towards Uday.The only difficulty characterwise is in understanding why Uday behaves the way he does. But I guess this is what makes us hate him rather than pity him. The fact that he's a complete mamma's boy is a nice touch, however, and adds a little bit more texture to the character.Like The Parent Trap, there's some mild humour running through. Unlike The Parent Trap, the violence is anything but mild.So by the end of the film I have fulfilled my objectives of learning more about the world (Iraq-Kuwait war, Hussein family) and seen a moving film with good characters in the bargain.