Rating: 
Summary: An amazing film...
Review: First, it is simply amazing that this film was ever made. When you watch the film, and realize how the director managed to obtain the footage, you will be astounded. This film presents Saddam in a satirical light, yet still manages to portray the true evil of the man and his regime. It is especially chilling when you realize that several of the people depicted in the film were executed shortly thereafter. In addition to showing the evil side of Saddam, you get to see glimpses of his fabulous lifestyle. He truly lives the life of the "Rich and Famous." However, his opulence is shown to be tragic when you are shown the vast suffering of the Iraqi people. If you wonder why we overthrew the government of Saddam, watch this film. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: An amazing film...
Review: First, it is simply amazing that this film was ever made. When you watch the film, and realize how the director managed to obtain the footage, you will be astounded. This film presents Saddam in a satirical light, yet still manages to portray the true evil of the man and his regime. It is especially chilling when you realize that several of the people depicted in the film were executed shortly thereafter. In addition to showing the evil side of Saddam, you get to see glimpses of his fabulous lifestyle. He truly lives the life of the "Rich and Famous." However, his opulence is shown to be tragic when you are shown the vast suffering of the Iraqi people. If you wonder why we overthrew the government of Saddam, watch this film. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Now more than ever...
Review: I laughed all through the first half of this movie. It's not often we westerners get to see a medieval despot in action, and Saddam would have been right at home in the Middle Ages. Here's a guy who demands that his subjects kiss him on each armpit; who has Iraq's major newspapers run a front page photo of him every day of the week; who's favorite sport is fishing-with hand grenades(!); who allocates much of Iraq's limited wealth to build monuments to himself. I found myself not hating Saddam so much as I wanted to put him on display as a kind of curiosity, like in the Ripley museum. The second half was much more sobering, focusing mainly on who was killing who to get ahead in the regime. All in all, you really have to admire the filmmaker (a Frenchman-Gasp!), who risked his life for the sake of ridiculing one of the most dangerous people on Earth. And for the record, I'm against the war, but that doesn't mean I don't think somebody needs to plug the S.O.B.
Rating:
Summary: Diary of a Madman
Review: I saw this when it aired on Cinemax and was blown away. I can't believe anyone was brave or crazy enough to take on this assignment but I'm glad they did.
Rating: 
Summary: We got him now.
Review: I say they should sodomize this guy with pork sausage links before sending him to his reward.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to watch history lesson
Review: I will not waste words. You simply MUST see this movie. As cheap as I am, as un-civic minded as I am, I'm going to buy a copy of this DVD and donate it to the city library--just to increase the circulation of this very important, interesting, and highly entertaining documentary. Joel Soler makes Michael Moore's work (Roger and Me) seem like a hillbilly hack!
Rating:
Summary: A "MUST SEE!"
Review: I will not waste words. You simply MUST see this movie. As cheap as I am, as un-civic minded as I am, I'm going to buy a copy of this DVD and donate it to the city library--just to increase the circulation of this very important, interesting, and highly entertaining documentary. Joel Soler makes Michael Moore's work (Roger and Me) seem like a hillbilly hack!
Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: Not as funny as I expected. The problem is that its a real documentary that pretends to be a satire, and the writing is horrible. Just horrible. I thought it had been written by the amateurish documentarian, and then I'm totally surprised to find out it was written by a real comedy writer. It would have been really funny if they'd put words in Saddam's mouth, like, "ooh, I like it when you kiss my armpits. Catch a wiff!" The fascination of Saddam is that he plays the part of the megalomaniacal dictator, but he's not a colorless bureacrat like Assad or some Khomeni figure. In fact, he actually cracks a few jokes throughout the film, he even seems like a real human being. And when he throws a grenade in a lake to go "fishing"--that could only be done by a man with a sense of humor, however evil and sick and gruesome.
Rating:
Summary: Uncle Saddam
Review: Not only is Saddam a poison gas wielding monument building mass murdering dictator, he's a clean freak with a hat for every occasion. Good stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Not just mediocre: incompetent
Review: This documentary is bad on so many different levels that it's difficult to know where to begin. "Uncle Saddam" is directed like a particularly egregious episode of "Hard Copy," or some other tabloid news program. The writing is simply inept: sarcastic, but not funny. In fact, no part of this documentary is remotely original. It reveals no information that hasn't already been known for years. (Surprisingly, many of Saddam's stranger idiosyncrasies are not even mentioned.) The historical overview is superficial in the extreme; the film seems to gather footage of Saddam that is already widely available; and finally, while an irreverent approach to the subject matter might be appropriate for a documentarian like Morgan Spurlock investigating the fast food industry ("Super Size Me"), such an approach seems pretty callous in a film about a murderous dictator.
The director fails in his obvious attempt to replicate Barbet Schroeder's brilliant, "Idi Amin: A Self-Portrait." Even if Soler could have secured the kind of access enjoyed by Schroeder, the sheer incompetence demonstrated by this embarrassing film makes it seem unlikely that "Uncle Saddam" would have ever lived up to the challenge. "Idi Amin: A Self-Portrait" is a cinematic masterpiece: a documentary that explores the chasm between the decorated military dictator and the human misery he causes, an inquiry into the personal psychology of those who crave political power, and, finally, a portrait of a deluded, narcissistic, sociopath. "Uncle Saddam" resembles a poorly constructed, sensationalized, dumbed-down "A&E"-style documentary about Saddam and his family.
It should go without saying that Soler makes every effort to excise those portions of history that are currently regarded as unacceptable -- those irritating facts that crop up, every so often, in the middle of articles that appear on page A19 of the NYT or Washington Post. Those interested in the history of Saddam's curious relationship with the West, as well as the eccentricities that appear to be the source of so much amusement for the other reviewers, should check out Said K. Aburish's "Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge": basically, a case study in hypocrisy. Brief articles are also widely available, together with links to the declassified documents, at the National Security Archive:
"Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984"
[...]
"The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook"
[...]
Also, for an article critiquing the media's newly discovered outrage over Saddam's use of WMD, with sources cited, see:
Ackerman, Seth. "The Washington Post's Gas Attack: Today's outrage was yesterday's no big deal." EXTRA! Sept/Oct 2002
[...]
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