Power corrupts a mad leader, but also his young Scots doctor as well.

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2007)

"The British Empire is long dead; only flotsam and jetsam now remain" wrote Niall Ferguson in his outstanding history of Britain's imperial adventures "Empire". Amongst the flotsam and jetsam that had been discarded was the nation of Uganda which became independent in 1962 and fell into anarchy a few short years later. The first "democratic" Prime Minister (on the Westminster model) was Milton Obote who soon tired of the constraints of democracy and overthrew the constitution. Uganda then became ruled by whichever warlord had the most military resources and from 1971 to 1979 this was the grotesque tyrant Idi Amin. Superficially a comic figure there was in reality nothing at all amusing about this maniacal psychopath. So to make a movie about Amin the minimum requirement is to ensure that his tyranny is clear  and this the director of "The Last King of Scotland" Kevin Macdonald does exceptionally well. Amin could have been depicted merely as a comical Gilbert and Sullivan grotesque (which he was), but Macdonald - in his first feature film  uses his documentary-making experience to present Amin also as a far from fictional mass-murderer.
Amin is revealed in all his horrendous authenticity by the creation of a fictional character in the young Scots doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) through whose eyes we see the dictator in all his raw brutal detail. Garrigan is seeking adventure and escape from the dull and straight-laced Presbyterian world of his family in Scotland. He chooses Uganda initially for commendable humanitarian reasons but is soon enticed by Amin's offer to him to be his personal physician. So we see Amin through Garrigan's eyes, and being as close to the despot as he needs to be to fulfil the role that Amin wants him to perform, we inevitably see Amin warts and all.
"The Last King of Scotland" is about the corruption that always comes from power  not just the corruption of Amin, but the corruption of Garrigan as well. Gradually the privileges of power give Garrigan the conceit that he can do what he likes  just as his employer does. When this includes the idea that he can have a sexual relationship with Amin's attractive third wife Kay (beautifully played by Kerry Washington) his delusion is almost as mad as Amin's. It's probably never a good career move to screw the wife of a maniacal mass-murdering psychopath! Pretty much everything about "the Last King" is excellent, a remarkable directorial debut by Macdonald. But what turns a very good film into a great one is the astonishing portrayal of Amin by Forest Whitaker. Whitaker is a veteran of some seventy movies as actor, producer or director but he can never have come close to a part before that was so made for him. And he took it very seriously indeed getting and staying in character even when the cameras were not running. It must have been very scary indeed for the crew and the rest of the cast to have Amin in their midst all the time!