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Rating:  -
It is a film about haggis and Highland Games that you were hoping for, then surely you will be disappointed. Because The Last King of Scotland has very little to do with the automatically assumed main topic of Scotland and instead takes us away from the Scottish land to a place a bit more remote: Uganda.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald and written by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, The Last King of Scotland is a narrative interpretation of the life and power of the former military dictator and president of Uganda Idi Amin. Like many others that he bestowed upon himself, the film gets its title from a self-given name that Amin calls himself.
Forest Whittaker plays the role of Idi Amin and his performance leaves no surprises as to how Whittaker won the 2007 Oscar for Best Performance by Leading Actor. Whittaker boldly embodies the power and demeanor of Amin who at times can seem like either your best friend or a ruthless dictator. The mannerisms of Whittaker and the voice that he uses when speaking as Amin seems to fit the role perfectly and one would be hard pressed to imagine a more perfect possible cast for this role.
Set in the years of Amin's rule between 1971 and 1979, the film also highlights the work of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). Garrigan decides that living in Scotland and working in the family medical practice simply was not something that he would be able to do upon graduation from medical school. Therefore, Garrigan decides to literally spin the globe and land his finger on a location where he hoped to serve as a doctor to perhaps a population that needed him more than those back home in Scotland. Of course when he landed on Uganda even Garrigan himself likely was not ready for what was next to come.
Garrigan plans to work in a Ugandan medical clinic run by Sarah Merrit (Gillian Anderson) and her husband. The clinic provides free care to so many in Uganda that simply cannot afford even the most basic of health care. After a run in with Amin, however, Garrigan decides eventually to leave the clinic to take a state run position as Amin's personal doctor.
The relationship between Amin and Garrigan certainly grows as time goes on and the level of trust that Amin bestows upon Garrigan is clearly evidenced. The position of doctor quickly grows into confidant with an almost chief of staff level of seniority being reached by Garrigan in Amin's cabinet. However, as power tends to do to some people, quickly the power that Amin has garnered both by popular will and through force rapidly begins to corrupt the government that Amin has built and set out to be a change from the corrupt government that preceded him that he overthrew.
Very quickly, as so many of the relationships of those around Amin had done before, the friendship between Garrigan and Amin begins to sour. Due largely in part to an incident involving one of Amin's purported wives, Kay (Kerry Washington) and Garrigan, Garrigan goes from being on top of the Amin leadership level to being an enemy of the Amin dictatorship and a marked man.
There is certainly a good deal of blood and gore in this film which though at times is excessive accurately portrays the brutality inflicted by the Amin rule in Uganda. Though perhaps having a more Western frame of mind in theory, Amin certainly rules with an iron fist and ensures that his rule and authority comes at the expense of peace and due process in Uganda. Rather than having the brutality of Amin's rule simply glossed over in the film in actuality the director has done a fine job accurately transferring to film the rule that wreaked so much havoc upon Uganda.
The Last King of Scotland is an amazingly well done film that takes a very historic and factual story and transforms it into a very watchable and interesting film. The movie has a way of holding the viewer's attention throughout and even though the nature of the film focuses on a very emotional and intense subject, the viewer can watch the film and not be lost in any complexities that are not well enough hashed out.
Certainly after watching this film it is plain to see why The Last King of Scotland has commanded so much respect and praise amongst movie viewers. Unlike the forced appreciation of the leadership of Amin, this film is indeed worthy of all of the praise that it has and continues to receive.
Rating:  -
What a "FAILED" attempt to show the world what Idi Amin was. Bear in mind that this is a movie "based" on facts. The Scotsman's character is fictional and "based" on a character from a book which also like the movie is again "based" on facts during Amin's tyrannical rule. The movie should not be considered 100% historically accurate. The fictitious Scotsman's character is based on the the life of Bob Astles, an Englishman who was a close associate of Idi Amin and who after Amin's ousting fled to Kenya. He was later apprehended and was sentenced for crimes (theft, murder and corruption). He denied charges and was acquitted but it is anyone's guess what someone associated with the dreaded Amin and his security apparatus were up to.
In the 70's the very word Amin meant terror. His big and towering 6 ft plus frame, looks and candid speech made him both a hated and dreaded personality. He was a perfect example of the phrase "Absolute Power corrupts absolutely". With a good measure of insanity, hedonistic evil and torture his reign was almost that of a modern day Caligula.
Since many of us already know who Amin was this movie simply capitalizes on that very powerful presumption or at least expects us to have this hideous view of him and develop or possess hatred towards Amin. However, what you get in this movie is a cute, happy, chubby and cheerful Idi Amin who many would easily think, after watching Forest Whitaker play the role, could have even easily been guided from his evil ways on to a path of sanity and goodness. With his brilliant straight-from-the-heart 10,000 watt smile and innocent eyes Foresh Whitaker plays a very different Idi Amin we aren't used to. Compare videos or images of the real Amin and you'll see there's no way that smile and those eyes of Whitaker could exude evil or fear of the real dictator.
Then comes the fictional Scotsman who by twist of fate ends up as Amin's personal physician, friend and adviser. But is everything ok with the Scotsman and did he do right?
Here is his list of misdemeanors.
Killing of man and beast.
1. In one of the early scenes where he confronts Amin, a cow is involved in an accident. The scene is a total goof-up. Amin needs nursing and the Scotsman who is there to assist seems to be more irritated by the agonizing cries of the helpless animal (as he is not able to concentrate on treating Amin) that he shoots it to death in cold blood. The viewer is made to believe that the Scotsman did right by delivering the animal from its pain. But Why didn't he think of administering a sedative? He could have given it an anaesthetic and later put it to sleep or nursed it to health. Better still he could have asked his female companion (who is also a doc) to do something about it. Euthanasia is not even advocated by doctors.
2. Wrongly tipping Amin of an innocent colleage and that which cost the colleague his life.
3. There is yet another scene where he runs over and kills an injured man to save his life and Amin's during a failed assasination attempt on Amin.
4. And finally the most daring of all - trying to kill Amin himself. Amin's wife and the doctor who saves his life in the end are both killed or sacrificed for the Scotsman.
And of course not to forget the Scotsman's no.1. misdemeanor - Philandering
5. One of his one-night-stands is shown briefly in the beginning of the movie. When you can pass that off as lightly, comes the next one.
6. Trying to unsuccessfully seduce his friend's (another Doctor's) wife.
7. Having an affair with one of Amin's (of all people) wives and impregnating her in the process and then desperately trying to abort the baby.
Be he a criminal, a terror, a despot, a murderer or even a canniabal but wasn't Amin's trust in his friendship betrayed? Or is the film trying to say, "If your trusted friend is a tyrant, you can go ahead and be a lover to his wife?" Preposterous!
With all this going against the Scotsman how can the movie expect the viewer to offer sympathy for the Scotsman and let him get away with all of this? Well you could if the movie shows the real Amin, but what you get is some chubby, cheerful and guileless looking guy for Amin in Forest Whitaker.
Then there is the sour Scotsman - Englishman rivalry which was totally unnecessary because that too backfires on the Scotsman when the latter agrees to help the Scotsman. I really want to know if Scotland is another country totally different in thinking and evolution and views from English. When the Scotsman says "I am Scottish.", does that mean they are much better off than their cousins and neighbors, the English, who at one time in history had colonized most of the civilization on this earth.
This movie also has a very ridiculous scene where the Scotsman meets up with Amin, who with his friends are watching a porn movie under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
All the negative aspects hides the good Afro songs and the lovely African landscape the movie has. Only the presumption that Amin was a hated guy saves this movie to some extent.
Sharad Patel's "The rise and Fall of Idi Amin" made soon after Amin was ousted was in many ways comical and sometimes even exaggerated but at least it showed the world why the infamous despot was so dreaded. But even for those who knew Amin well this movie misleads them.
Rating: -
What a wonderful first half of a movie! James MacAvoy was tremendous as the naïve Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, a young med school grad who traded a safe career as a country doctor in his dad's practice for a life of adventure in a mission hospital in Uganda. Garrigan is a skilled doctor, but also incredibly callow. Arriving in Uganda at the time of Idi Amin's takeover in 1971, he intends to boff everything in sight, including the wife of his fellow doctor. Coming on the future dictator whose car has collided. Garrigan inadvertently finds favor with the strongman and soon finds himself the his personal physician. Amin then begins to give the doctor more and more responsibilities, until he is so enmeshed he cannot escape.
(Note: some spoilers follow)
First off, Garrigan is fictional, which gives the filmmakers a couple of options. They can either make him the eyes of the audience, a means for letting them see events in a naturalistic fashion. Or they can use him allegorically, making him stand for something larger than himself. In the case of "Last King," the filmmakers seemingly tried to use him as both, but without success. Large swaths of Ugandan history are kept from Garrigan's eyes, and therefore our own. Amin is portrayed as large and lovable, with only a hint of the beast within. When it comes time for Garrigan to realize what a murderous monster Amin really is, Garrigan is brought up to speed in just a few minutes. It's at this point that the movie became unbelievable. We are asked to believe that everyone but Garrigan knew what was going on in the country. But the good Doctor was hardly kept in isolation, so his continued ignorance (when surrounded by those who knew the truth and were trying to tell it to him) is incredible. Garrigan doesn't even function as an allegorical figure, represting the outside world, since Amin's brutality was well known outside his own country.
I demur from those who admire Forest Whitaker's depiction of the dictator. FW is too much of a teddy bear to function as homicidal maniac. His sudden turn from genial, oafish strongman to brooding maniac comes too swiftly to be believable. Watch the shots of the real Amin at the end of the film and in the additional material. He was a scary guy, with cold, piercing eyes. Sorry, Forest, but I would not have voted you the Oscar.
"Last King of Scotland" is a perplexing film that could have been much more. The final scenes, depicting the Entebbe raid in 1979, exist less for what they say about Amin or Uganda than as a convenient means for letting Garrigan escape the country. Why else the brutal scene in the room adjacent to where the hostages were kept? The film's first half promised a real classic about Africa and the forces that created a man like Amin. The failure of the film's second half, with its bloody scenes of torture, indicated a failure of nerve to follow through on that promise.
Rating: -
An extraordinary film -- not easy to watch because of the violence but well-worth the time. We should always be reminded that horrible things go on under our collective noses. Both Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy were absolutely brillient.
Rating: -
Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin deserves all the praise and awards he has received for this stunningly rich performance. He becomes the cruel dictator for every moment he is on the screen in this two-hour film and plays Amin as an extremely complex man who has had an interesting experience in the British military, loves all things Scottish and is willing to put his complete trust in a young white physician Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) who goes to Uganda in the early 1970's to begin his practice of medicine. Young and full of optimism, he goes to Uganda to "make a difference," becomes Amin's personal physician quite by accident on his part and gradually becomes sucked into the maelstrom of the dictator's evil machinations.
The music is beautiful-- for example, a native singer performs a soulful rendition of Kris Kristofferson's plaintive "Me and Bobby McGhee"-- and the filming comes off as completely authentic. My only concern with this must-see movie is that McAvoy looks too young to be a physician. Surely he would have had to have been approaching thirty to have just finished medical school, but he looks much younger. I heard an African American professor giving a civil rights speech shortly after Whitaker won his awards who in passing criticized this film because Amin is "saved and protected" by a white man, the physician. (Garrigan is a fictionalized character from the novel by Giles Foden.) I would argue just the opposite since Garrigan's life is saved by an African physican who loses his own for saving Garrigan's.
The DVD version has documentary footage from Amin's life that is certainly worth seeing along with this highly suspenseful movie that is not to be missed.
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