House of Saddam (HBO Miniseries)

So this was a miniseries that I had been interested in since it aired in 2008. I never came around to watch it and every time I would get access to HBO, I'd always see it and think to myself, Why haven't I watched that yet? There's nothing really special about the current world we live in or what's going on that this applies to, but I figured it might be a good time to finally watch House of Saddam and figure out what my personal fuss over the past 12 years has been.

It's a four part mini series. I will break the review into four sections where I talk about what each one covers and what I liked and didn't like about each, but for the most part, I'm viewing this sort of as a 4 hour movie that I am watching in pieces because despite what I thought going into quarantine, I don't have much interest in watching 3-4 hour long movies (even The Irishmen).

It should be noted that because I have a little bit of a nerdy history side, I was pairing my watching of this show with the Wikipedia of Saddam Hussein and the history of Iraq. It should be noted that the viewing did sort of need some context to understand the events of the show, especially if you're like me and you don't know the history of Iraq very well.

Part 1

House of Saddam begins in 1979. Saddam Hussein (played by Yigal Naor) is the Vice President of Iraq and in the first 10-15 minutes of the show forces the resignation of the current President and installs his own control over Iraq.

His seizure of power does not remain peaceful for long as he begins to execute those opposed to his Presidency and even those in favor of it to show his power.

This starts off the reign of Saddam Hussein and it is one of unchecked power and dictatorship. The first part covers the war in Iran in 1980 as well as the relationships between Hussein and his family and officials within his government. The relationships center around this power dynamic where Saddam is at the top and people come in and out of usefulness to him. 

For example, Said Taghmaoui plays Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim and while he supports Saddam's rise to power, that relationship sours pretty quickly after Ibrahim is unable to carry out all of Saddam's wishes  to the letter. He is quickly replaced by Hussein Kamel (played by Amr Waked) who marries Saddam's daughter and starts a rivalry for Saddam's affections with his sons in the following parts. 

Another notable performances are that of Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays Saddam's first wife and she provides an interesting look into the political structure of Iraq all the way up to the 2000s where political appointments were really dependent on who you were related to. 

Part 2 and Part 3

As we move into the second part, it focuses on Hussein at his "peak" where he's been in power for a while and the he's deciding the foreign policy that essentially makes him a piraha on the national stage. Part three focuses on Hussein after the first Gulf War but actually hones more than ever on the relationships and betrayals happening within the "house of Saddam"

I do find the show to be interesting the fact that its presented as this sort of Macbethian/House of Cards style (although the American House of Cards had yet to air) to it, with multiple political factions forming within the people surrounding Saddam and reacting to his tyranical rule. Again, the role of who is in Saddam's depends on who says they will do his crazy wishes and full his unhinged nature. But the problem with that is that Hussein was known to be a delusional figure and his view of himself and Iraq were just that, delusions. The whole series can be broken down to a new figure each hour saying Saddam are you sure that crazy idea you have is a good idea? And Saddam saying, Of course it is, it is for the glory of Iraq or some nonsense. 

It should be clear that my issue with this show isn't so much about Yigal Naor's performance. He has a great voice and he plays the character really well. 

It's more that Saddam Hussein is not a very complicated character even though they try to make him one. The show is bound by historical accuracy and instead of making him a compelling character, it's bound by how history actually unfolded. 

The third part of this show was honestly the slowest episode even though it probably had some of the more interesting political intrigue. At this point Hussein Kamal has really fallen out of favor and he flees Iraq to help the CIA overthrow Saddam. But again, the show is handcuffed by historical events that a lot of the tension that is built up between characters is really lost because while Kamal has feuds with Saddam's unhinged son (played by Philip Arditti), it wasn't that son that ended up killing Kamal in the end. Maybe I shouldn't have had the wikipedia page up while I was watching the show because it kind of took the tension out of all of it when I knew that a lot of these people died when Coalition troops entered Iraq in 2003. 

Part 4

Part 4 mainly takes place after the 2003 invasion and Saddam is evading capture. I think this episode worked better because they start off with a disclaimer that not much is known about the time after the invasion but before his capture, so they are able to take a little more liberties with the details surrounding this time. 

Again, the episode feels very much the same because it's just him delusionally thinking that he's going to come back to power all the way up to the point where he's captured, but at least this episode had a change of setting and some suspense about when he was actually going to be pulled up from that iconic hole in the ground. 

I do think though that this episode could have been reformatted to be about the legal case against Saddam ending in his execution in 2006. The show largely skips that and ends with a text box that says he was executed. I don't know if it was a budgetary thing or if the show thought it would be more valuable to spend a lot of time with Saddam fishing with a random kid outside of his hideout, but hey that's why I don't make miniseries. 

It should be noted that this show is about 12 years old. While HBO had some good production value back then, House of Saddam feels very limited in the story its trying to tell and some of the intrigue it was supposed to provide. While action is clearly not the focus, it's pretty clunky when it happens and it feels like the whole show is kind of holding back some of the gruesome-ness for the sake of promoting the political intrigue, but the intrigue also feels held back by history and not taking too many liberties. 

Overall, I think there were parts of this that could have been cut and the whole thing probably could have been made into a 2 and a half or 3 hour long movie. While the episodes are only an hour long, they just crawl and I had a hard time getting through the whole thing. 

At the end of the day I'm glad I can say that I finished the miniseries, but I can't say I recommend it. There are a lot of political dramas out there and while House of Saddam does show that drama from the perspective of a middle eastern dictator, I can't say it's up there among the products that HBO has produced. 

But those are my thoughts on House of Saddam. What did you think? Has anybody else seen this show since 2008? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog. 

Thanks for reading!