Inside a Monster: Whitaker gives a galvanizing Oscar caliber performance

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2006)

THE LAST KING OF Scotland (2006) ***1/2 Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Simon McBurney.
Inside a Monster: Whitaker gives a galvanizing Oscar caliber performance.
Idi Amin was a larger than life thug, whose decade long reign of terror in his nation of Uganda during the 1970s may have been given an asterisk in history books for his genocidal tendencies that would make most despots blanch (his involvement of 300,000 fellow countrymen is notorious) and he may pale in comparison to latter-day villainous leaders like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. However history has a way of repeating itself and on cinema, history lasts forever.
Amin's rise to power is seen from the unblinking, naïve eyes of a young (fictitious) Scotsman named Nicholas Garrigan (McAvoy in a strong difficult role), a recent medical student grad who on a whim decides to leave his homeland for the first place his finger lands on his spinning globe (well, really second, after the primo decision of Canada apparently held no sway of adventure) to make a break from his unmoored existence.
Once there the good doctor is ensconced in the tumultuous African nation under a military coup de tat by Amin that eventually lands Garrigan an audience with the imposing, garrulous man himself (Whitaker, in a towering career best and a front-runner on the short- list for the Academy Awards this year), when after attending a crowd-pleasing speech with his fellow doctor Sarah Merritt (Anderson in an underused role), they encounter a road delay on their journey back to their camp. It is here that Amin's entourage has struck a farmer's ox and Amin has sustained a hand injury. Garrigan is hustled over to the stricken leader who shows his scary side, barking orders to his men, while the dying animal bleats in the scorching sun. Like an Aesop fable of the lion and the mouse, Garrigan fixes the wound and then when he can no longer bear it, takes Amin's pistol and kills the animal ending its misery. Angered and shocked at this impromptu command of power Amin hovers over the smaller man and then does something equally surprising: offers the young Scot a permanent position as his personal physician. When Amin learns Garrigan is indeed from Scotland  Amin a renowned lover of all things Scottish  offers the medic his ribbon-festooned shirt in exchange for the soccer t-shirt Garrigan is wearing. The deal with the devil has been made.
What follows is the idealistic yet amazingly blind-sided by power doctor is suddenly thrust into the corridors of the Amin regime unknowingly to the ongoing slaughtering of the Ugandans and his administration suddenly 'missing'. As Garrigan becomes deeper and deeper into a de facto friendship with the charming yet paranoid chieftain it suddenly dawns on him that Amin is indeed a ruthless dictator and the desire to return home is only further diminished.
To add fuel to the fire Garrigan is enamored of Amin's youngest wife Kay (ethereal Washington), the third spouse of Amin's, who is pretty much neglected by her husband and when Garrigan gets too close to the fire, the source only begins to heat up the inevitable downfall.
Written by Jeremy Brock, Peter Morgan and Joe Penhall, adapting the novel by Giles Foden, the screenplay focuses more on the gullible doctor than the rule of Amin until its climax but it is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a monster and how the curdled charisma of this horrific ruler managed to fool much of the Western world. Whitaker's top drawer turn as Amin is amazing, with his imposing bulk, crocodile smile and on-a-dime turn from laughter to unbridled anger is a goose-bump inducing performance counterbalanced by the ballsy and ultimately sympathetic performance by McAvoy; the chemistry between the two actors is hypnotic in the same way as watching a train wreck in slo-motion.
Director Kevin Macdonald keeps the pace going at a ready clip and wisely allows his actors breathing room from one set-up to the next and gives it a you-are-there vibe to the proceedings at hand.
But once again it Forest Whitaker who richly deserves all accolades come awards season for making a monster into a human being and back again in the blink of an eye; no easy feat by any means.