Enthralling insight into the behaviour of a dictator.

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2020)

Oscar winner Forrest Whitaker takes on the what I can only imagine must have been the toughest task of his career, as he grittily portrays the charismatic Ugandan despot Idi Amin in this thriller told through the eyes of his personal physician (James McEvoy). Both performances work really well together and do evoke a real sense of the opulence and horror involved, viewed from inside Amin's coterie, as he turns from a benign dictator who does appear to want to improve to the lives of his people to a conceited tyrant who orders the torture of men and women alike with impunity. The extent to which the scenarios are actually true is moot, but as an history lesson it demonstrates inhumanity at it's most terrifying. The last 20 minutes make for a taut conclusion.