Idealistic Youth is Disapprised of His Intent

Rating: 10/10 (29 January 2007)

This is a fictional story about a young doctor from Scotland who goes to Uganda to do service to the common people, and thru a series of fortunate/unfortunate events winds up as an intimate of Idi Amin shortly after he assumes the presidency.
No doubt there are some technical inaccuracies in this film, and I'm sure someone out there will be able to spot them, but for this is really a very well written, acted and filmed story. We know well in advance how our young hero is going to spiral down into the madness of the madman's mad house, but still the story is so artfully told we are fascinated by every facet and twist of the plot. FW deserves an Oscar, and the young doctor deserves, well, some more good roles.
The only faults which bother me personally was the sudden appearance of the English doctor's wife at the end, on the bus. Is she fleeing the country. What happened there? Her whole sub plot was not really relevant except to establish the Scot doctor's raging libido. And the Englishman from the embassy was a great character foil, but his character and storyline never went anywhere. That could have been a rich look at the political side of the story.
But in the final analysis, this is not primarily a political film; it's the story of very flawed man, and how he destroyed massive quantities of people, one way or another. For such a heavy and grim movie, it's a surprisingly good time.