Bonehead Scot Earns A Trip To The Wood Shed

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2007)

The Last King of Scotland is one of the best DVD's I've seen recently. The movie is about a naïve, young, medical school graduate who journeys to Uganda at the time of General Idi Amin Dada's rise to power. The young lad is on a selfish, Peace Corps-like adventure but soon becomes acquainted and associated with Amin as a sort of top adviser. The story follows the young man's slow descent into the horror of Amin's reign.
The movie was quite good. I'd watch it again. Shot on location, the film is rich in local color. The story is gripping. Almost from the beginning you're at the edge of your seat waiting for Amin's shoe to drop on the clueless, young child of the 70's, Dr. Nick who, by the way, had to be the dumbest, most politically ignorant kid in his class. He sure didn't attend the same prep school as The History Boys. Although he did select Uganda as his destination by dropping his finger on a spinning globe, you would expect he'd do a bit of research before leaving home.
The acting is first class. The sex is gratuitous. So is the violence. (What else is new?) Judging from the deleted scenes, character depth was left on the cutting room floor. Still, Amin is known and portrayed as such a fearful, ruthless and psychotic figure, little else is needed to move the story along briskly.
The movie makes the point that political heroes/saviors often turn out to be the worst kind of scoundrels. I would have enjoyed that story much more if the plot had turned around the international political and economic intrigue that enabled Amin's dictatorship rather than Dr. Nick's insatiable, sexual appetite.
I'll score the movie eight stars only because the good, Scottish doctor is too much of a spineless bonehead to take seriously or even sympathetically.
Enjoy.