Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s (Forest Whitaker) regime as seen by his personal physician (James McAvoy) during the 1970s. (imdb.com)

You ever seen a movie where you come out of it so discusted with the major character that you can’t tell whether you liked the movie at all? It’s either a mark of a great actor or a sign that I take film too seriously. Nuts to the latter! It’s definitely that Forest Whitaker is an exceptional actor. His portrayal as the very charismatice but brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, is phenomenal. I have no doubt that he will be nominated as best actor for the Oscar, the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, among others. And frankly I’d be surprised if he didn’t win all three. Idi Amin was responsible for the executions of 300,000 of his country men before being exiled to Arab where he died of organ failure in 2003.

There have been other truly astounding stories of such holocausts in African nations portrayed in films. Hotel Rwanda (Rwanda), In My Country (South Africa)and on some level Tears of the Sun (Nigeria) come to mind. These three films filled me with absolute disgust and sadness for the barbaric slayings of its own people by the power and money hungry government officials and their soldiers who were supposed to protect them. Tears of the Sun especially spoke to me since I am Nigerian. Yet, there’s something to be said with putting a face to the barbarism.

Amin was so charismatic that he fooled the press and his people into thinking he was a simple man serving his people. Whitaker played this role to perfection. The Scottish doctor Amin hires to be his personal physician was taken in, wooed, but eventually almost killed by Amin who claimed to love him like a son. Amin was mad with power and delusions of grandeur. His Scottish protege, Nicholas Garrigan, played exceptionally well by James McAvoy, was young and naive enough to think the Ugandan president was a man for the people probably ’cause he wanted to believe when in fact he was probably a border line schizophrenic paranoid and suspicious of everything and everyone. It has hard to believe the leader of any country would slaughter its own people, especially if you’re an outsider.

Soon enough, naive Nicholas grows up but after it costs two lives and almost his own. Actually, Nicholas disgusted me too. His naivete along with his naked bravado made for a very frustrating screen personality. Nicholas went to Uganda on a whim and to escape the humdrum life in Scotland beneath the shadow of his very well liked doctor father. Nicholas, a doctor himself, claimed to want to make a difference but took to the spoils of Ugandan politics and being a white man in a black world. He took for granted that sleeping with one of five of the Ugandan president’s wives would bring dark violence closer than he could ever imagine. Stupid, stupid, man.

Anyway, The Last King of Scotland, now that I have had time to process and think about the movie in total and not just the major characters effect on me, is a really good film. However, it breaks apart a little at the end becoming a bit melodramatic. A bit unconvincing. Though this film is based on actual events and historical facts, Nicholas’s charcater is fictional. So, perhaps the story of a brutal Ugandan president told through the eyes of a White Scottish doctor who survives the brutality to tell the tale would bring in more viewers than a tale of barbarism in another African nation. Nonetheless, it’s a film worth watching.

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