The real story of Idi Amin would have been a lot more entertaining.

Rating: 6/10 (31 March 2011)

The last King of Scotland is (very) loosely based on the former president of Uganda Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) and the fictional story of a young freshly qualified Scottish doctor, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). The film is based on Giles Foden's novel of the same name and while a lot of the story told about Amin's Brutal regime is quite true, the whole premise of the film is pure fiction. After doing some research, the closest match to the fictional doctor's character was a man called Bob Astles, who was neither Scottish nor a doctor. Astles was a former British soldier and colonial officer who lived in Uganda and became an associate of presidents Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Astles had a varying career in Uganda and was even imprisoned by Amin for 17 weeks. He eventually worked for Amin while running a pineapple farm as well as an aviation service. He later said, "I kept my eyes shut, I said nothing about what I saw, which is what they liked." A Wikipedia article states, "He was feared, and considered by many to be a malign influence on the dictator; others thought he was a moderating presence." Following the Uganda-Tanzania War which led to the demise of Amin's regime in 1979, Astles fled to Kenya, but was brought back to Uganda to face criminal charges. He was imprisoned for his alleged association with Amin's security apparatus, and was charged with everything from murder and corruption to theft. Though acquitted, he remained in Luzira Prison for six and a half years, returning to Britain after his release in 1985. I cannot for the life of me understand why all the so called 'based on a real story' mainstream films feel like they need to embellish the truth to such an extent! This period in Uganda's history has more than enough drama, war, and notable events like the 'Air France hostage' situation in Entebbe airport. Whilst this incident plays a major part of the ending of the film, it's a shame that they felt the need to fictionalise this incident as well by making the fictional doctor the key part of this incident as well. Again, I can understand why they had to, after all, the whole film is based around the fictional doctor! My point is that you can tell the story of Uganda and Idi Amin and his crazed behaviour and the slaying of more than 300,000 of his opposition and the Entebbe incident including the dramatic rescue of all but one of the hostages, and make all this one hell of a film! To date, no film has managed to achieve this and I for one think its a crying shame and a waste of a great opportunity. If it wasn't for the fact that that 25% of this story is real, I would have loved this film, but the fact that the film makers chose to use a fictional book to base this story on rather than the far better real story, spoils it for me. Having said all that, it's still well worth watching, I just waiting for some brave film producer to be the first to actually make a film about a true story that has nothing but facts in it!