Spinandstir's Review

Rating: 8/10 (15 October 2006)

At times, I was hoping to get more of a historical picture so I could learn about the infamous dictator, but the film is not a doc. If you want history, you have to research Amin on your own. What the naïve doctor chooses not to know, we don't really learn either such as (the excessive torture and brutality of Amin), but when he does learn about the leader via horrific glimpses of his brutality, so do we. Nicholas is very much a young liberal who wants to believe that this dictator will bring power to Africa and unleash the chains of British imperialism. However, Amin is not the answer to the poverty and misery in Uganda, and Nicolas finds out in the ugliest of ways and barely escapes to tell us about it.
The film really captures the deterioration of the dictator's mind/soul. Much like the The Madness of King George, this film observes the downward spiral of the manic mind and how absolute power can make you paranoid and corrupt. Whitaker is so much in character that sometimes it feels like a documentary. However, like a great actor, when he charms you as the leader, you are charmed in the audience. When he destroys you, you feel demolished.
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