The Film Thugs Movie Show

History has little use for third acts. Yes, things are always happening and then developing further complications, but real life feels no need to resolve things neatly. This isn't much of a problem in the study of history, but it really is when you are dealing with attempting to retell it in a dramatic sense.

It usually works best to allow enough time to pass for inaccuracies to be overlooked. That's why movies like "Braveheart," and shows like "The Tudors," work so well dramatically. There is little attention or care paid to history and a lot paid to drama.

So how do you handle an interesting true story that is less than 10 years old and doesn't really have much of a resolution?

This is the difficulty facing "The Devil's Double," and it is handled about as well as it could have been.

It is the story of a man chosen to be a double/decoy for Uday Hussein, the unstable son of Sadaam Hussein. It is a look at what happens when a sociopath is given a consequence free playground and how a person who is accustomed to a world that makes sense can become lost in it.

Dominic Cooper is absolutely amazing as both Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier who is pulled from his life and dropped into the most insanely decadant world imaginable, and as Uday, one of the most chillingly charismatic lunatics imaginable. He creates two completely unique people who exist on opposite sides of the moral spectrum. Latif is a moral man who is forced to endure, and in a way assist, Uday in his world where people are disposable playthings that are useful until they become boring. Uday is a spoiled child who has no regard, or even awareness, of other humans as anything other than things put there for his own amusement (the wedding scene is especially brutal). Cooper makes both completely real.

The first two thirds of the film are strong, very strong. But then it kind of falls apart, which is to be expected. You know how the story plays out, that Latif has to escape in order for his story to be told, and Uday has to live long enough to be killed in 2003, so much of the real dramatic tension leading to the climax is lost. Also, as Latif's real story was left somewhat open ended by history it is impossible to really put a dramatic release on the film without pulling an "Inglourious Basterds" and rewriting history, which goes against the purpose of this film.

What you are left with is a good film that doesn't really have a chance to rise above being good. The idea and set up is top notch and it is a fascinating look at a world that few of us could ever really imagine.