Thrilling and at times terrifying

Rating: 9/10 (24 August 2007)

In short, "The Last King of Scotland" is a magnificent film. Well written, acted, especially by Whitaker and McAvoy, and impressively directed the film is thrilling and at times terrifying. This film is worth seeing as an excellent piece of modern cinema though it does have some scenes that could only be described as upsetting. However it is an extremely intelligent piece and deserves far more examination than some simple sound bites.
The horror of genocide certainly does not necessarily make great film. You have to be a pretty sick person to sit down, enjoy and engage with a film that is solely about genocide. Recently, man's inhumanity to man has been pushed into film in cruel and nasty motion pictures such as "Hostel" and "Captivity". This is not entertainment. It is not art. It is vicious and unpleasant and recent events have displayed that violence and murder is not something that should be treated lightly. At the pinnacle of these acts is genocide and the great films that have been made about genocide have never relied solely on their horror to generate entertainment. "Schindler's List" focuses on one man's fight to save hundreds of people from cruelty. "The Pianist" tells the story of one man's struggle for survival and the good man who saves him. "The Last King of Scotland" could very easily have been horrid and vile, particularly as it took its subject matter from one of the most horrendous events since the holocaust. However, like it's predecessors it chooses to focus on character and provides an intense examination of the psychology of Idi Amin. However, the stroke of genius in this film is to have another character, the fictional Dr Nicholas Garrigan, as the audience's eyes.
Garrigan is not a moral man. He is an adulterer and self-centred. He is also extremely young and naïve. The audience's foreknowledge of Amin's crimes are suspended by Garrigan's enthusiasm and by the "Gen-e-ral"'s charm and charisma. It is a slow realisation of how deep Garrigan is, how blind and how terrifying and unstable Amin is. A question hangs over the film  was Amin always a maniac or was it something that was caused by the paranoia of leadership and the ongoing struggle for power? It is explored quire thoroughly and terrifyingly. Garrigan is a character that the audience cares about and so we feel his terror and his Faustian dilemma is one that we can understand. He is dismissed by other characters as evil  Amin's "white monkey"  but he is a force for good in Amin's camp ultimately thus making it possible for us to sympathise. He has unknowingly done a deal with the devil and is paying the price.
A lot of the credit must go to the writers and actors in this film. Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan do an excellent job at creating tension and interesting, intricate characters. It has hard to think of a recent thriller that has been this psychological and this effective. Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy compound the groundwork laid by the script with superb performances. Whitaker is brilliant and paints the picture of the terrifying, psychotic Amin excellently. However, McAvoy is a real revelation. In many ways he has a harder part and is charming enough and talented enough to pull it off. The film hangs together as a piece extremely well and the work of Kevin MacDonald as director cannot be ignored. He is an exciting director and should be watched extremely closely.