Could've been much better

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2007)

New medical graduate Nicolas Garrigan goes to Uganda to practice medicine and winds up the personal physician of the murderous new president, Idi Amin.
The main fall-back of this film is that rather than tell the story of the life and reign of Idi Amin, as seen from his doctor's perspective, the focus of the story is, instead, on the life of the doctor himself. And the character of the doctor is so badly written! He's so utterly charmless, uncharismatic and full of self-confidence that it makes him so hard to like. On top of this, he is also so stupid that the story is also unbelievable (watch the film, you'll see what I mean by stupid!). And James McAvoy is quite unconvincing, he's actually very annoying.
With such a powerful, charismatic character such as Amin, the film should focus on him, rather than uninteresting side-stories concerning his doctor.
However, the film does have a saving grace; Forest Whitaker is amazing, so utterly convincing in his role, every line is executed perfectly. He is up for a nomination, and viewing the competition he really deserves a win. But the film really doesn't deserve any nominations, and interestingly is hasn't received them.
Could've been good, but if the film was based on Amin, it would've been a lot better.