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We here at JPFmovies pride ourselves at talking a hard, gritty look at entertainment from all over the world.

700 days of Battle us vs. the Police–Probably the Funniest Non-English Film I’ve Ever Seen.

16 Dec

This movie for all of its great lines and comical scenes is a movie Hollywood simply would never make.  Why?  because it is too simple.  There are no action scenes, unnecessary subplots or super-graphics, merely a bunch of teenagers having fun with an uptight policeman.  As I’ve said in the past, Hollywood films nowadays are nothing more than a bunch of special effects and action scenes strung together with a “plot” to fill in the space.  This movie is different, 700 Days is an episodic look at the escalation of the war between a group of mischievous high school students and a strict, uptight new cop in town.  Nothing more, nothing less.

The showdown begins when one of the team is caught speeding on his bike past a hidden radar gun and is given a ticket.  Not to take this lying down, his fellow group of prankster-teens decides to retaliate by taking revenge on the new sheriff in town.  It starts with simple speeding through the radar trap on bicycles to annoy the waiting policemen but gradually moves to more elaborate and bizarre tomfooleries.  Like running past the speed camera with a brass band trying to disrupt the radar gun, planting pornographic manga around the police station and stealing fireworks.  Though the actions and results of these pranks may, in the grand scheme of things, seem to be of little significance, the officer eventually finds himself brought down to their level and retaliating with similar means, hence starting a small-town war with no end in sight.

On the surface there may not seem to be any real plot progression, however, the irreverent and outrageous humor makes the film increasingly engaging as each side tries to one up and out-fox the other in order to claim king of the mountain status.  Director Tsukamoto even does it with style, making moments of the film literally look like frames of a Japanese comics—apparently this film is based on a very popular manga (a Japanese comic that people of all ages read covering a vast array of topics) and Fukada keep the laughs coming almost constantly, making for a pleasurable comedy.

Often there is not too much one can say in a review of a film like this without giving away the store except that the right chemistry is evident between the cast of characters making their performances lively, funny and convincing.

 

Typically foreign comedies don’t translate well into other languages—not this one.  Hollywood should take some pretty damn good notes on this movie’s methods and writing if they ever want to produce something original besides the usual dreck they force on an innocent public.  Not everything has to be a $50 million special effects season bonanza or some idiotic Martin Lawrence and whoever he currently teamed up with in some cliché bad cop movie to get some laughs.  The fact of the matter is, is that at every high school in this country you will find some unsung heroes like the gang headed by Granny bike leading the charge against unjust, unjustified and absolutely unnecessary oppression by narrow-minded fanatics who have nothing more in life other than their petty rules and torments.  The sooner Granny Bike & Co. push them over the edge so they get over themselves the better off we all are since little healthy rebellion never hurt anything; in fact it makes our kids stronger giving them the backbone to stand up to a system which may not have their best interest at heart.  Again, this simple premise is lost on today’s motion picture studio decision makers in their concern with some nonsensical sappy requirement to have every base covered in the last scene so that all loose ends are tied up letting everyone go home feeling nice, neat and complete.  They are nothing more than a bunch of chicken shits in my mind.  This film has more humor in the first 20 minutes than all the comedies produced in 2012 combined.  I dare you to remember back to your youth and not admire or reminisce about some of the pranks these guys pulled in a couple hundred days.  And if you can’t, you sure missed out on a great portion of life that you will never get back.

Too simple for Hollywood, no question about it.  Too bad of course.  Based on the clips I have included you are really getting a taste of what this movie is about.  You’d be a fool not to watch this film and urge our formulaic unoriginal and clichéd film industry to produce at least something like this just once in a while.

I hope you enjoyed it and please watch when you get a chance.

 

JPFMovies

 
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Posted by on December 16, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

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There are bad sequels and then there is Smokey & the Bandit II (1980).

08 Dec

We here at JPFmovies have consistently maintained that rarely is a sequel as good as the original.  Smokey & the Bandit II only adds to the mounting evidence proving this unfortunate fact.  Sure, once in a while you’ll get a sequel that is as good or better than its predecessor, however, never count on it, and certainly don’t count on it in this film.

We have already reviewed Smokey and the Bandit giving it high marks for Gleason’s outstanding portrayal of Sheriff Buford T Justice, Burt Reynold’s smart ass—even arrogant lines that don’t turn you off and of course, Sally Field as the frog.

While Gleason does the best he can to carry this film it sure isn’t enough.  In fact, I’m shocked that director Hal Needham who sold more Trans Ams than all the dealerships combined could put his name in such a pathetic movie.  Not only does most of the original cast appear in this film, but we also have the added “treat” of Dom DeLuise playing a gynecologist who takes care of an elephant.

Smokey and the Bandit II is a retread of the first film, while simultaneously completely ignoring it.  Here we have the same situation: a proposition by the Enos’s, Bandit and Cledus hauling a load in a short amount of time, Bandit also having the bride ride along shotgun, Justice and his son-in-law in hot pursuit, a Trans Am, and country music galore (including a brief appearance by the Staler Brothers).  Yet, the more it takes from the original masterpiece, the less it feels like a real movie.  This is a film made for either little children or idiots, with some of the most tired gags and dopiest schmaltz ever injected in a chase flick.

Now that you know how I really feel about this movie, let’s look a little deeper at this monstrosity.

Big Enos Burdett (Pat McCormick) is running for Governor of Texas against another candidate, John Coen (David Huddleston).  After a figurative and literal “mud and manure slinging” between the two, they are given a thorough tongue-lashing by the sitting governor.  While Burdett is leaving the office he overhears the governor yelling at an assistant to take responsibility for transporting a crate from Miami to the Republican Party convention in Dallas.  To try and win favoritism from the existing administration, he enlists the help of Bandit (Burt Reynolds) and Cledus (Jerry Reed) to carry out the task.

Cledus then attempts to convince the Bandit to “do it one last time.” Unfortunately, in the time since their previous challenge, the Bandit has split from his love interest Carrie aka “Frog” (Sally Field) and become an alcoholic.  In fact, little Enos correctly describes Bandit as being in the shit house.  Cledus is forced to seek the help of Frog to encourage the Bandit to sober up and regain his fitness, since Big Enos has raised the stakes of the game to $400,000, equal to $1,128,271 in today’s dollars.  Once again, Frog abandons her wedding to Buford T. Justice’s (Jackie Gleason) son Junior (Mike Henry) to help by getting a phone call (long-distance of course) just before she is about to take her vows.  She is initially persuaded more by the money than her love for Bandit.  She buys him a 1980 Turbo Trans Am named “Son of Trigger,” powered by the Turbo 301, by trading in Junior’s car.

Unbeknownst to them what’s in the crate is a large pregnant elephant that they are supposed to get from Miami to Dallas in a short period of time.  Of course, the mother elephant gives birth en route, causing a rift between Bandit and the rest of the team because he is obsessed with making the deadline.

Because Gleason is having problems catching Bandit he enlists the help of his two brothers (also played by him) to try and apprehend this scofflaw.  Justice lures the Bandit into a valley, with a line of Mounties (in red police cars) on one hill side, Texas Rangers, in white cars, on the other.  Bandit orders Cledus to continue delivering Charlotte to Dallas.  Cledus later returns, with a convoy of trucks to help destroy all of the police cars.  Charlotte and the doctor watch the action from afar.  After the mass destruction of police cars, only Buford, Gaylord, and Reginald come out relatively unscathed.  Bandit and Cledus escape the valley by driving across a bridge of tractor trailers.  As the Justices follow, a trailer pulls out resulting in their cars falling down and being destroyed. However, Buford’s car is still operable, though folded up in the middle and missing its doors and roof.  Justice and Junior are cut off by a farm tractor, and they drive off the road, hitting an embankment by a pond, throwing Junior into the pond.  When asked what he was thinking about, Buford simply says, “Retiring.”

The only decent thing about the scene is that a world-record automobile jump was captured on film during the “roundup sequence,” when stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker jumped a 1974 Dodge Monaco over 150 feet.  Hooker suffered compressed vertebra as a result of a hard landing.  He is one lucky guy.

Of course, Bandit finds himself again and he and the Frog sail off into the sunset– so to speak.

Smokey and the Bandit II is a movie that could only result at the end of a bender mixed with some sort of hallucinogen.  Attempts to be cute only lead to embarrassing corniness, in this egregiously annoying follow-up that has the same cast and character names, while no one plays the same person they were in the first film.  The final insulting wad is eventually shot in a ludicrous showdown between the cops and a bunch of renegade semis, and the only real loser is us, the unfortunate fans viewing it.  And unfortunately I remember seeing this movie in the theater so actually I had to pay for it.

 
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Posted by on December 8, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again a little Woo goes a long way: The Killer (1989).

05 Dec

The Killer is a 1989 Hong Kong crime film written and directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee and Sally Yeh.  Chow is triad assassin Ah Jong, who accidentally damages the eyes of the Jennie (Sally Yeh) with his gun’s muzzle flash during one of his hits.  He later discovers that if Jennie does not have an expensive operation she will go blind.  To get the money for Jennie, Ah Jong decides to perform one last hit—and it will indeed be his last.

A police detective, Li Ying (Danny Lee), spots the assassin completing the job but he escapes.  Triad leader Hay Wong Hoi double crosses Ah Jong, and instead of paying him, sends a group of hitmen to kill him.  During Ah Jong’s escape from the Triad, a young child is injured by a stray bullet.  After dispatching the attackers, Ah Jong rushes the child to the hospital while being followed by Li and his partner Sgt. Tsang.  Once the child regains consciousness at the casualty ward, Ah Jong escapes Li and Tsang who becomes obsessed with Fat’s act of goodwill.

The detectives stakeout Jennie at her apartment and plan to arrest him the next time he visits her.  Ah Jong visits Jennie and is caught in an ambush from which he manages to scramble away.  Li and Tsang explain to Jennie that Ah Jong was the assassin who blinded her at the nightclub. Ah Jong meets with his Triad manager, Fung Sei (Chu Kong), and demands his payment for finishing the job.  Fung Sei brings a suitcase for Ah Jong, who discovers it to be filled with sheets of blank paper before finding himself in the middle of a Triad ambush.  He dispatches all of the Triads, but leaves his old friend Fung Sei alive.  The next day, after Fung Sei’s pleas for Wong Hoi fall on deaf ears, Ah Jong does a fantastic hit-and-run on Wong Hoi’s car, wounding the Triad leader and killing his driver and bodyguard.

Li begins to close-in on Ah Jong after Tsang follows Fung Sei; Tsang is killed after revealing the location of his home.  Because of their friendship, Fung Sei leaves a large stockpile of weaponry for Ah Jong.  The home is another ambush; Li is first to attack followed by a group of Triad hitmen. Li gets caught in the middle of the crossfire between Ah Jong and the Triad.  Ah Jong and Li flee, and while Ah Jong’s wounds are mended, they find themselves bonding and becoming friends– it seems strangers can make good bedfellows.  Ah Jong tells Li that should anything happen to him, Li should try to have Ah Jong’s eyes donated for Jennie’s surgery; otherwise, he is to use Ah Jong’s money to fly her overseas to have her surgery performed by more experienced doctors.

Li, Ah Jong, and Jennie wait in a church for Fung Sei to return with Ah Jong’s money.  Fung Sei arrives with the money, horribly beaten by Wong Hoi’s gangsters who have followed him.  He is mortally wounded when the hitmen barge into the church.  After Ah Jong ends Fung Sei’s misery, he and Li engage in a long and bloody shootout with the Triad all over the church. The battle ends with a Mexican standoff between Ah Jong, Li and Wong Hoi.  Ah Jong manages to wound Wong Hoi, but the Triad leader lands two bullets in Ah Jong’s eyes before the latter dies of his wounds.  When a police squadron arrives in the scene, Wong Hoi begs to be taken into custody.  Frustrated by the outcome of the battle, Li fatally shoots Wong Hoi before he himself is arrested.

The Killer is an important and influential film for both Western and Asian filmmakers.  Film scholars have noted the similarities between Woo’s style and The Killer with the films La Femme Nikita (1990) and Léon (1994) directed by French director Luc Besson.  Kenneth E. Hall described Léon as having the similar character configuration of a hitman and the person he protects. In Nikita, the main character’s crisis of conscience after performing a number of hits is also seen in The Killer.  And, not surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino developed films that were influenced by The Killer.  In the film Jackie Brown, Tarantino wrote dialog referencing The Killer.  No references to the film are made in the original novel.

The Killer was also influential in hip hop music.  American hip hop artist, and Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon released his critically praised debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. (1995) that sampled numerous portions of dialog from the film.  RZA, the producer of the album described the albums themes by stating that “Rae and Ghost was two opposite guys as far as neighborhoods were concerned, I used John Woo’s The Killer.  You got Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee.  They have to become partners to work shit out.”  Woo apparently felt honored that the group sampled The Killer and asked for no monetary return from them.

Director John Woo has described The Killer as being about “honor and friendship,” “trying to find out if there is something common between two people” and as a “romantic poem.”  The structure of the film follows two men on the opposite side of the law who find a relation to each other in their opposition of a greater evil, Wong Hoi, the leader of the Triad.  The relationship between the two main characters was influenced by the Spy vs. Spy comics from Alfred E Newman’s Mad Magazine.  It is reported that Woo recalled “when I was young I was fascinated with the cartoon–I love it very much…the white bird and the black bird are always against each other, but deep in their heart, they are still friendly, and the idea came from that.”

Though the film received praise and box office success outside of Hong Kong, The Killer’s success around the world made several Hong Kong filmmakers jealous: “It created a certain kind of resentment in the Hong Kong film industry.  One thing I can say for sure is, the American, European, Japanese, Korean and even the Taiwanese audiences and critics appreciated The Killer a lot more than it was in Hong Kong.”

Naturally because of Hollywood’s lack of imagination, an American remake of the killer is in the works.  Director John H Lee will be remaking the film which is supposed to take place in Chinatown, Korea town and south-central Los Angeles.  Luckily, the remake will be produced by John Woo and is set to be filmed in 3-D.  Let’s be honest, a remake of John Woo’s The Killer was inevitable.  While this flick may not be as well-loved as Woo’s Hard Boiled it’s still a master class in acting, heroic bloodshed and ultra-violent gunplay.  Unfortunately, US audiences largely refuse to see films created in other countries probably because they can’t read subtitles not to mention anything starring a non-white actor, or, failing that, Will Smith, so it’s almost surprising that it’s taken this long for Hollywood to decide that the film ought to be recreated with a white lead and an American setting.

My guess is the remake will be a piece of film junk that only insults the original masterpiece created by Woo in the late 1980’s.  With any luck, however, it may be as good as the remake of Death of Samurai released last year.  But I’m not betting on it.

What can you say about this movie?  It was powerful, influential and ahead of its time much like many of John Woo’s films.  One of JPFMovies trademark sayings is “a little Woo goes a long way.”  Now imagine what a lot of Woo does and you’ve got The Killer.

 
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Posted by on December 5, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

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I can’t understand how this one got away for so long: The Royal Tenenbaums.

24 Nov

The Royal Tenenbaums is the third movie Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson wrote together; previously the duo penned Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. All of these movies operate on a basic storytelling theme- the dysfunctional family, the adolescent emerging the cocoon- but within them is an entire world of his own creation.  Director/writer Wes Anderson and writer/actor Owen Wilson take a twisted look at a bizarre dysfunctional family of “geniuses” in the film, “The Royal Tenenbaums.”  The story is perfectly narrated by Alec Baldwin and is star studded to say the least starring Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston, with Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson.  Moreover they all play their parts perfectly; I would not have changed a thing.

The Royal Tenenbaums is a comedy of reactions more than it is of large events.  Most of the internal family conflicts have already happened off-screen, and the film’s large cast of characters operates within Baldwin’s narrative as people full of resentment, regret for each other and even some self-loathing.  It all starts with the neglectful, condescending father figure, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) when he is asked to leave the house by his wife (Anjelica Huston).  As a result, the three children (Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Luke Wilson) years ago, intentionally forgot their father and the dystopia that results is palpable.

This bohemian family living in metropolitan America, the Tenenbaums are an offbeat and unusual crowd.  Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline bring up their three children at home and instill varying degrees of artistic, commercial and sporting success into them.  Thus Chas (Stiller) turns out to be a highly successful businessman, running his office from home from a young age, Margot (Paltrow) writes her first play for her 11th birthday, and Richie (Luke Wilson) is a prodigious tennis champion who eventually becomes one of the world’s leading players.  When Etheline and Royal separate the family drifts apart: Chas, now a grown-up widower, worries furiously about the safety of his children; Richie, disillusioned with the tennis circuit, travels the world on various cargo ships, and Margot lives a depressed life of extreme secrecy married to psychiatrist Raleigh St. Clair (Murray) basically living in her bathroom.

 

Royal, a former litigator who was brought down years ago by Chas and sent to prison feels that during his last stage of life he wants to reconnect with his family.  He comes up with an outrageous scheme of feigning illness after he’s kicked out of the hotel where he has been living.  However, his children don’t buy his change of heart towards them after 17 years of indifference. Margot can’t forgive Royal for never letting her forget that she was adopted.  Chas desperately tries to keep him away from the two sons he’s raising alone since the death of his wife in a plane crash.  However Royal secretly gets through to the kids by taking them on several prankster adventures.

Richie is the only one who seems to evidence any feelings of closeness for his dad even though the former tennis star is still struggling with the love he secretly harbors for his adopted sister.  When Richie finds out that she had an affair with Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), the Tenenbaums’s next door neighbor who is now a novelist and drug addict, he tries to commit suicide.  In fact because of her “extreme” secrecy virtually no one knows anything about Margot until Richie and Raleigh St. Clair retain a private investigator to dig into her background and are shocked to find that, among other things, she has been a smoker for over twenty years.

As time passes Margot releases a new play based on her family (which gets mixed critical reviews and runs for about 2 weeks).  Raleigh publishes a book on his subject’s condition, Eli checks himself into rehab in North Dakota, and Richie starts a junior tennis program.  Royal has a heart attack and dies, with Chas (the one who hates him the most) as the only witness.  The family attends his funeral and leaves together after the service.

 

I can’t say enough about this work.  Alec Baldwin’s voice continually soothes one gracefully through the film, even at moments when it would usually be totally inappropriate for him to do so.  The perfection continues to the high profile cast of characters, each of whom is so uniquely interesting that any normal sane filmmaker would have given a separate film to each and every one of them rather than throwing them all together in one movie and setting them at each other’s throats.  It’s hard to praise this cast enough.  Each of the actors totally “gets” their role and vividly portrays all the unique and weird quirks of their characters it becomes almost hard to take wanting to see more of each one of them while at the same time wanting to see more of all the others as well.

 

Each instant flows together smoothly, even when jumping back and forth between young versions and older ones of the cursed Tenenbaum children.  Each character’s entrance is crafted with precision to intentionally seem haphazard.  Before we get anywhere, or even meet the adult Tenenbaum children, we already know whom they are.  When Stiller’s introduced as Chas, we’re already in his head.  Gwyneth may seem mysteriously disturbed when we’re introduced to Margot, but Anderson has already opened the door.  Luke Wilson’s dead on as Richie and this is Owen Wilson’s time and he does shine.  It’s all there, awkward, disturbing, funny, eccentric, despicable, and beautiful.

 

The film industry needs more Wes Andersons and Owen Wilsons it would infuse some much needed originality into the products.  As for the Tenenbaums, my research indicates that not everyone seemed to get this film, critics sounded confused and many others moviegoers seemed to consider the film too benign (probably because they have been infected with contemporary crap Hollywood is spewing today).  The movie is original bold and different all things I look for in a great flick.

 

I can’t believe Gene Hackman did not win an Oscar for his performance.

 

 
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Posted by on November 24, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

For a “Silent War” there is sure a lot of noise. The Silent War (2012).

31 Oct

The Silent War is adapted from the novel Listener to the Wind, the first installment of the three-part espionage series “Plot Against” by Mai Jia, a sort of mainland John le Carre. Mak and the film’s screenplay significantly simplifies the plot.  The story is set in Shanghai, 1949, with the Japanese defeated; China’s own civil war is ramping up.  The Chinese Communist Party is gaining ground in the rural parts of the country, but the Kuomintang (the government advocated by Chiang Kai-shek, and Sun Yet –sen), stills infests the urban areas.  Chinese Communist Party Intelligence knows that the key to taking down the Kuomintang is in tapping into their communication channels, but so far they have been unsuccessful.  Secret Agent Zhang Xue Ning a/k/a “200” (Zhou Xun) is assigned to retrieve a distinguished piano tuner to apply his hearing to various inaudible radio frequencies, but the crafty Agent Zhang quickly discovers that the blind assistant, He Bing, (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), like Zatoichi, has greatly enhanced hearing as many blind people do because of their lack of sight.  Bing is brought into the invisible 701 Unit and proves an unqualified success, sniffing out radio signals no one else can.

 

The female secret agent Zhou Xun, is, in my opinion, the best character in the movie.  Sure we’ve all hear that blind people have their other senses heightened as a result of their inability to see—that is an old tale (i.e. Zatoichi, the comic book character Dare Devil et cetera).  However, it is rare that we have the opportunity to see such a smooth female secret agent that doesn’t seem forced—as so often films tend to do when working with such a character.  As a result, the film’s heroics fall to Zhou Xun, who does a wonderful job in a role that should be the main focus of this film.  Part of her charisma is that she proudly puts herself into harm’s way for love of the Communist Party and on more than one occasion Bing.  Zhou is easily the best thing in the film, and impressed me whether she was turning heads at a glamorous Shanghai function or engaging in high-stakes mind games with the enemy during a round of mah jong.  It is a shame that the film isn’t more focused on her exploits as Xue Ning makes a far more interesting subject than the blind cliché He Bing.

Writers/directors Alan Mak and Felix Chong must fancy movies about hearing (in one form of another) having made Overheard and then Overheard 2—note these are also the chaps that created the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Infernal Affairs trilogy.  As some people say, two steps forward and one step back. The Silent War is that one step back for these two.  What kills you are the long, indolent scenes fixated on radio telegraphy; although Morse code is vital to the story, its technical workings are not explained in a stimulating manner.  The suspenseful action typical of this genre is reduced to one well-staged escape sequence in a concert hall and a finale that is a letdown.

 

One area of the film that I particularly enjoyed, though, was the authentic art deco interiors, elaborated by elegant set decorations that are visually striking.  The elaborate upscale party scenes are filled with rich vibrant colors and embody the tone of the art-deco renaissance of the 1950’s.  Even the film’s cars are cool and classic looking, like they were plucked out of a museum.

If you’ve got a couple of hours to kill, don’t be afraid to watch The Silent War, but don’t expect Overheard, Overheard 2 or anything on the level of the Infernal Affairs trilogy.  The film’s well-acted female secret agent and great sets are reason enough to watch The Silent War, but that is about it.

 
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Posted by on October 31, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

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And I thought being the Third Shadow was a rough gig, it is child’s play when you are acting as Uday Hussein’s body double.

17 Oct

Those of you who read our review of Ichakowia Raizo in the Third Shadow know that people in powerful positions often have body doubles.  In the Third Shadow, Raizo plays a body double to the reigning warlord due to their uncanny resemblance.  As we saw in the Third Shadow, some of the benefits of masquerading as the lord included living a life of luxury, sleeping with beautiful women and getting large stipends.  The same principle and techniques are still being used today.  Uday Hussein was the sadistic psychopathic son of Saddam Hussein and was considered by many to be even crueler than his ruthless father.  Worried about assassination and other attacks, Uday decided that he needed a double like the several his father employed.  An old classmate of his from University, who had an eerie resemblance to the dictator’s son, was chosen to be Uday’s body double.

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Enter the Devil’s Double, a movie which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and was only released on a limited basis throughout the United States.  The movie is based on the book written by Latif Yahia who was forced to be Uday’s decoy and to this day bears 26 scars on his body from bullets, grenades and the like.  After viewing the film, Yahia said it was about 80% accurate the other 20% was toned down for audiences.  Apparently, he has to take pretty healthy doses of Valium every night in order to sleep and fend off the nightmares.

Only knowing what I had seen and heard on the news about the depravity of Saddam’s children this film was a real eye-opener.  In 1987, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper), an Iraqi soldier fighting on the front lines in the Iran–Iraq War, is recalled to become a “fedai” (“body double” or political decoy) for Uday Hussein (also played by Cooper), the playboy son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (Philip Quast).  Latif comes from an upper-class family and had attended university with Uday, where everyone would remark on their likeness.  Foolishly, Latif initially refuses the position, but is tortured, and ultimately relents when his family is threatened.  Latif even has to undergo cosmetic surgery to perfect his resemblance to Uday.  Like our protagonist in the Third Shadow, he is given access to all of the luxurious benefits of the Husseins’ fortune, including massive palaces, expensive wardrobes, Uday’s vast exotic cars collection and women (only if Uday gives him permission first).  Latif tries to resist Uday’s exorbitant carousing and erratic behavior only to be stopped, threatened and captured by Uday’s own inner circle of bodyguards.  The first assassination attempt we see in the film is during an appearance at a conference with various Kuwaiti leaders.  There, as Latif is exiting the building a bloody attempt is made on Uday’s (Latif’s) life by a member of the Kurdish rebels.  And who can blame them, after all his father did use poison gas in his efforts to suppress the Kurds.  The real Uday, though, is more concerned with the Kuwaitis, who he believes have been slant drilling from Iraq’s Rumaila oil field.  The first Gulf War is launched with Uday decreeing “The Age of the Sheikhs is over!”  Obviously this chump has his priorities straight.

As the movie progresses, the real Uday becomes more and more debauched to the point of kidnapping 14-year-old girls as well as brides on their wedding day.  Killing them after he’s had his way with their bodies.  Latif sits and watches in disgust as his master sinks further and further into a hellish world of mayhem and self-destruction.  Even Uday’s father wanted to kill him on more than one occasion.  Apparently Saddam had a valet that he trusted and Saddam trusted no one.  During a party authorized by his father, a frustrated Uday takes a bottle of liquor and smashes it into the valet head causing nothing less than severe trauma.  When his father found out what he had done, he showed up with a loaded gun in his hand, pointed it at his son’s head and said if he (the valet) doesn’t live that he (Uday) would not live either.  This moron went so far as to cut someone open with an electric knife at a party given for the President of Egypt’s wife right on the buffet table.  After he realized what he’d done, Uday tried to kill himself by over dosing on sleeping pills.  In my opinion, it was merely a ploy to garner sympathy and avoid torture or execution by his father.  When Saddam shows up at the hospital, he holds a knife to Uday’s private parts and threatens to cut it off only relenting when the Doctor pleads with him saying that Uday will die because of the blood loss.

The film also points out that Latif was not only used as a decoy for would be assassins, but was also a tool for political purposes.  Uday’s double was the one sent to the front to give moral boosting speeches to the troops, where several near miss assassination attempts were made on the decoy who sustained serious injuries.

 

Examples accumulate showing the audience just how sick this Uday was.  Luckily, Latif was able to escape to Malta where a would-be assassin sent by Uday just misses shooting him as soon as he arrives on the island.  Uday calls Latif and offers him one final chance to return to Iraq, threatening to kill his father if he refuses.  Latif’s father encourages him not to return so he is killed.

 

However, Latif does return to Iraq to kill Uday with the help of a man whose bride had killed herself after being raped and beaten by Uday on their wedding day.  In an adapted version of the real attempt on Uday’s life made in 1996, Latif and his partner ambush Uday while he is attempting to lure young girls into his Porsche.  They wound him severely, including–consistent with unconfirmed reports of the real-life attack–mangling his genitals with direct shots.  One of Uday’s bodyguards catches up to Latif as he runs away from the scene.  This guard, however, is one that Latif could have killed as he fled from Uday’s birthday party before leaving the country.  However, Latif spared his life and the guard returned the favor—also, in my opinion, he is silently condoning the shooting of Uday who is clearly out of control.

 

The fact that the real Uday body double said that 20% of the film was toned down shows good taste on the directors’ part.  Otherwise The Devils Double might have been something akin to a gory Asian horror movie.  For me, the film also validates the age old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  It makes me ask how a person who has the opportunity to rule a country wastes such a chance by becoming such a cruel perverted sadist in the true sense of the word.

Good movie.  Donald Cooper, playing both Uday and Latif, does an excellent job by acting in two roles that are polar opposite in their makeup.  I don’t know why the film was only released selectively in the States, but when you get a chance take a look at the Devils Double, if nothing else you will learn a lot about the inner workings of one of the world most ruthless and corrupt families.

 
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Posted by on October 17, 2012 in Movie Reviews

 

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