The Devil's Double

The Devil's Double is a biography only in the broadest sense, and that already tells you it is for viewers willing to sit with a dark, uneasy crime-world portrait. By our assessment, its force comes from the twin-performance setup and the ugly glamour of power it puts on screen. The downside is that this kind of story can feel relentless rather than spacious, because it is pushing tension and menace more than reflection. In practice the movie has a hard, tense texture, closer to a ruthless thriller than to a tidy life story. Against cleaner biographical dramas, The Devil's Double is messier and meaner, which suits its subject matter but narrows its comfort zone. It is the kind of film that works when the viewer wants pressure and moral dirt, and the 2011 date sits right on that harsher, more aggressive edge.