Films featuring dual roles for the leading actor aren't that uncommon. For instance, Alec Guinness played eight different roles in 1949's Kind Hearts & Coronets; Peter Sellers played three parts in 1964's Dr. Strangelove and Eddie Murphy played far too many characters for anyone's good in both of his The Nutty Professor films.

Obviously there's a common theme between all of these, and many other films of this kind: comedy. Director Lee Tamahori however has taken this device into interesting dramatic ground with his latest film, based on a true story.

Although world dictators may not have a great sense of justice and fair play when it comes to running their countries, they can be accused of many things, but not stupidity. Take Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein; he was so aware that some of his policies wouldn't really go down well with others that he had various body doubles employed for his own safety.

This idea wasn't only reserved for Saddam; it was felt that his son Uday (Dominic Cooper) would also benefit from having a double. Luckily for him, one of his fellow students at school resembled him, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper). So Uday offers Latif the position in a way he can ill afford to refuse.

They may look eerily similar, but Uday and Latif couldn't be more different. It's down to Latif however to emulate Uday's obnoxious drug-fuelled behaviour if he, and his family, have any chance of staying alive.

Who knew that terrorist chic would be so controversial on the high street?!

What makes this film all the more remarkable is that it's based on Latif Yahia's 1992 book of the same name, where he recalls the peculiar role of being the body double for the son of Saddam Hussein.

Despite Tamahori's film doing a swell job of capturing the opulence of the time, it struggles somewhat with the overall theme. Many of its scenes include both Uday and Latif socialising in public, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a body double.

What it resorts to instead is an almost brotherly rivalry between the pair. What this allows is Dominic Cooper to let rip in a Disney doppelganger fashion in his two roles, giving some really impressive face time with each. He certainly appears to have more fun playing Uday, with his womanizing, gun-toting ways.

It's just a shame that the idea of being a double for one of the members of the most notorious families in the world is put on the back burner for a meaningless love story. The introduction of Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) adds little in the way of anything to the script, and her relationship with both men is more insipid than sensuous.

It's understandable what Cooper saw in the project – possibly more than just twice the screen time for himself. And it's both of his performances that make this film worth the watch. It does feel though that Tamahori only scratched the surface of a truly remarkable body double story.