The Devil's Double (2011)

Sadly, the New Zealand-born director Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day, Next) -- who has been in Hollywood since 1996 -- has turned this story into a routine gangster film, complete with a gangster's girlfriend that falls in love with the trapped, helpless stooge; the plot goes at least all the way back to Gilda (1946), and perhaps earlier.

The best thing here is Dominic Cooper (currently in Captain America), who plays both the maniacal, psychopathic Uday -- who possesses and destroys young women like a hobby -- and Latif, who is sober and sad. Like David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988), the story requires both characters to share the screen quite often, and the movie has very good, if not entirely seamless visual effects. If the ploy works at all, it's because of Cooper's awesome performance; it's amazing to see Latif react in disbelief and disgust at his alter ego's antics.

French-born Ludivine Sagnier plays Sarrab, Uday's current girl of choice (and therefore forbidden), under thick wigs and thicker eyeliner. She's clearly a late addition to the story, and the movie sometimes doesn't know what to do with her. (She's no Gilda.) Is she reckless, or cautious? Is she a good guy or a bad guy? It doesn't matter; the story needs a girl to help sell it. Similarly, the movie is spoken in English, which -- in this day and age -- feels like a lazy choice.

The Devil's Double is shiny and glittery, gleaming with pretty clothes, girls, cars, watches and shoes. The Iraqi sun -- filmed in Malta -- is bright and sharp, providing a different kind of mood than the usual dark gangster or film noir version of this story. It's controlled craziness that never feels very crazy or very controlled. As Latif mopes within the party atmosphere, the entire mood slowly grows sour and stale, and the movie feels much longer than it really is.

It leaves me to wonder if this one-sided movie will be where the widest audience gets their history of Iraq and its various conflicts, and if so, that's sad.