This remarkable tale of the House of Hussein in late 80s Iraq, shown through Saddam's son Uday (with his Scarface-style descent into excess and madness) and his enforced body double, gives director Tamahori possibly his best film to date. The conceit of having Dominic Cooper play both lead characters works fantastically, with two excellent individual performances by Cooper and the interaction between the two contrasting characters utterly convincing and showing remarkable nuance (only a couple of poor head-paste shots in one scene stick out), with many excellent supporting performances on show throughout. The beautiful cinematography is mostly bathed in a sumptuous golden tint, a bleached palette introduced for scenes in which the atrocities occur. Christian Henson provides the film with an intriguing score which augments many scenes effectively. There are moments which truly shock, but there is an overall feeling that the film merely touches the surface - the arcs of both of Cooper's characters are complementary and well-handled, but the film sadly fails to deliver an explicitly strong pay-off that both the movie and the audience deserve. Nevertheless, this is a strong, interesting and bold film, elevated by Dominic Cooper's superb and challenging work.
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