Actor’s performance in two roles carries ‘The Devil’s Double’

Say hello to my little friends.

There's Uday , the debauched son of a despotic father, whose insatiable appetites for sex and drugs and disco don't mix with his (literal) hair-trigger temper.

And then there's Latif, who has the misfortune to look like Uday's twin brother -- and has 10 minutes to reconcile himself to playing the role.

Of course, he could always refuse -- and have his family face the consequences.

As he discovers in "The Devil's Double," perhaps that would have been the better choice.

That's because Uday is none other than Uday Hussein -- son of Saddam, then-ruler of Iraq.

And Latif is Latif Yahia, whose resemblance to Uday dooms him to life as the unhinged Uday's doppelganger. Assuming some assassin doesn't get to him first.

"The Devil's Double" -- adapted (by screenwriter Michael Thomas) from the real Latif Yahia's account of his experiences -- may focus on two separate characters.

But the real appeal of "The Devil's Double" rests with the actor playing both roles.

True Brit Dominic Cooper (who's turned up in everything from "Mamma Mia!" to this summer's "Captain America: The First Avenger") delivers a triple-threat, eerily unsettling tour de force performance, embodying not only Uday and Latif but Latif impersonating Uday.

Cooper's so adept at delineating the differences -- and capturing the similarities -- linking the two (three?) it's easy to forget one actor's playing both roles.

Which is, I suppose, the point of "The Devil's Double."

With director Lee Tamahori calling the shots -- literally and figuratively -- the movie doesn't deliver much insight along with Uday's talent for inciting outrage.

A veritable Baghdad Scarface, Uday runs riot through his father's realm, cruising the streets picking up schoolgirls, using them as sexual toys and tossing them aside once he's broken them.

His madness fueled by mass quantities of cocaine, he takes over discos and leads the partyers -- sometimes adding to the booming beat with bursts of gunfire.

And when Uday taps Latif to share his depraved adventures -- or, as Uday puts it, "be my brother" -- he thinks he's doing his former schoolmate a big favor, giving him an all-access pass to power and privilege.

Latif, a thoughtful veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, has a few problems with this arrangement. Naturally he appreciates the palace accommodations, the finest designer clothes, the easy access to whatever women Uday doesn't want.

But Latif also has a functioning conscience, and there are times when he wonders whether the hell outside Uday's orbit could possibly be any worse than the one he's stuck in now.

Complicating matters further is Latif's dangerous affair with Sarrab ("Mesrine's" Ludivine Sagnier ), Uday's No. 1 squeeze, who's as glittery -- and slippery -- as all the disco-queen outfits she wears, and discards, with flirty calculation.

Of course she's playing both ends against the middle.

Considering who she is and where she is, what other choice does she have?

Latif may offer one way out. But to engineer their escape, Latif's got to develop some action-hero machismo -- and hope his troubled conscience doesn't get in the way when it's time to do what a man's gotta do.

With the muscular Tamahori in charge, it could hardly be otherwise.

A veteran of everything from James Bond workouts ("Die Another Day") to man-vs.-nature melodramas ("The Edge"), Tamahori's strong suit always has been physical, rather than psychological, conflict. And "Devil's Double" fits right into that groove.

Tamahori chronicles Uday's outrages (along with Latif's outward acceptance/inner revulsion of same) in straightforward, sometimes slam-bang fashion.

The movie provides a few nods to context; it's startling to see news footage of President George H.W. Bush announcing America's first military foray into Iraq. But "Devil's Double" exists primarily outside of time; its focus could almost be any movie gangster clan, with the all-business patriarch (Philip Quast) too busy concentrating on his autocratic reign to rein in his hothead son. (Forget "Scarface" -- Sonny Corleone, anyone?)

As a result, Cooper's performance -- make that performances -- emerges as the best, maybe the only, reason(s) to see "The Devil's Double."

As Uday, Cooper captures the lonely little boy beneath the dangerously spoiled adult, while his Latif is world-weary, wary -- and ultimately scared enough to assert himself by taking command of their weirdly symbiotic relationship.

All of which isn't quite enough to take command of "The Devil's Double," which is so fascinated by its horrifying central character that it overlooks the "why" behind the "how."

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.