Review

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2007)

The Last King of Scotland, is not a biopic about Idi Amin, but instead a fiction rooted around his bloody and brutal rule of Uganda in the 1970s.
The story centres on the journey of newly qualified medic, Dr Nicholas Garrigan, adventure seeking and idealistically naïve about the post-colonial power plays occurring in the newly independent Uganda that he has arrived in, and far away from his native Scotland.
As he journeys on a packed bus to the missionary run rural hospital, where he has volunteered his services, he witnesses tanks and army trucks roar past jubilant crowds. He befriends a female passenger, and enquires of the military presence to find that Amin has just seized power in a coup, and this is "a happy day for Uganda ". Not one to opt out of celebrations, Nicholas rounds off his evening by bedding his new friend.
Nicholas' tendency to desire any female with whom he has a struck a friendship, is what leads him to first becoming Amin's personal physician, and later to his torture by Amin's death squad. In between these two key scenes, we witness Forrest Whitaker's towering figure and equally towering performance as Amin, stealing every scene from James Macavoy's "gap-year" gone wrong character. Whitaker's Amin was apparently endlessly researched, with the dictator refusing to let go once the cameras had stopped rolling, and the man is given room to reveal himself to be more than "The Butcher of Africa," but nevertheless a ruler that seems to govern on his indulgent whims and dark fancies.
Take for example, his full, self-given title of "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular".
In this adaptation of Giles Foden's eponymous novel, writers Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, and director Kevin Macdonald (Touching The Void), recreate key events in Amin's rule including his trips to Libya (where he that formed an alliance of sorts with Qaddaffi), his expulsion of all Indians and Pakistanis in Uganda (around 60,000, on the grounds that they are sabotaging his economy), and the hostage crises at Entebbe airport.
As these events occur, we see the development of strange friendship develop between Nicholas and Amin. Initially won over by Amin's love of Scotland and his magnetism, their bond grows stronger as they together survive an assassination attempt. Bolstered by the growing trust Amin displays towards him, Nicholas chides the local Foreign Office man when asked to "report back" from his unique position as the new President's personal doctor.
Amin's decadent parties, Kampala 's club life and hotel bars keep Nicholas occupied when he isn't working at Kampala 's hospital, and delay his awakening to the grip that has formed around him. This is vividly portrayed when Nicholas advises Amin that he intends to leave Uganda , to which Amin's immense frame hugs the increasingly desperate Nicholas, and proclaims "You are Ugandan," invoking the kind of wretched terror and finality that hasn't been seen since Brando's Captain Kurtz. Shortly after, Nicholas returns to his home to find it ransacked and his British passport missing.
As the brutality of Amin's rule and his paranoia increase, Nicholas finds himself trapped where his position as "Amin's white-monkey" means he cannot find passage out of the nightmarish dictator's hold.
"The Last King of Scotland," offers no condemnations on either colonialism or Amin's governance, and instead allows the almost "end of days" dionysian cuccoon that Amin and Nicholas briefly inhabit to slowly peel away to reveal the anarchy underneath, on Kampala's streets, in Uganda's villages and in Amin's mind. In this regard, it is a powerful and at times, harrowing journey.