Not enough Idi!

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2007)

I remember the brutal reign of Idi Amin years ago reading about his brutal reign in Uganda and was surprised that it took this long for a movie to be made about this mysterious dictator-madman. I was eager to watch this movie in hopes of gaining some insight on his rise and fall and learn more about how it all came about. After watching this movie, I must admit I was disappointed that the focus was on a fictional character (Dr.Nicholas Garrigan) and not on the dictator himself. A story focused on the Dr. and how he came to Uganda and eventually met Idi was not what I had hoped for. Forrest Whittaker did a marvelous job in becoming Idi on screen--truly worthy of the awards that he will receive for this work of art! The problem with this movie is the lack of focus on the main character. We do not learn how Idi rose to power, his early years and even his brutal character was hidden for most of the film. The last part of the film does capture his brutal and paranoid personality but so much of the film was focused on the other character (who is fictional!) that I left disappointed. Still so many questions left unanswered on who the real Idi Amin was that I will have to read more about him to get those questions answered. The story was interesting but the movie was not what I had hoped for. The previews for this movie is misleading because Idi is really the secondary character. He doesn't even appear in the movie for the 1st 20 minutes. The previews make it seem like he is the primary character and this isn't the case. While the movie is still a good one, I think it could have been a real classic if more of the focus was put on the main character.