Letters from Scotland; to hell and back again...

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2008)

The Last King of Scotland rightfully earned Forest Whitaker an Academy Award for his performance, and it showcased James McAvoy to the world as something vivid and highly talented. It's a dark, almost twisted film that uses much of its time to present to us McAvoy's alienation of himself and digging himself into something he can't control - something that looks like it may just take his life, something he slowly but horribly understands.
The country of Uganda is beautiful at first glans, but the deeper you go, the darker it gets. Uganda has all the qualities of an African country in progress, but the terror within is a boiling, intense, psychotic and sometimes twisted place where you'll feel just as lost and regretful as in the deep jungle facing a lion. McAvoy, the Scottish and we face upon a regime controlled by a psychopath.
McAvoy's trip from screaming in frustration in his Scottish-room-ceiling to joining a health-care organization in Africa to falling into a labyrinth of wrong is a hallucinatory journey into a man's alienation of himself. Turning to, and away, from himself throughout, the Last King of Scotland shows two men who stand upon each other with interest, fascination, even sometimes love but transforms into disgust, unreasoning, fear and hatred. The powerful use of real-footage in the ending gives the film a brilliant resonance.