Disturbing but excellent

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2011)

By using a fictionalised framework of an invented Scottish doctor (though one based on a real person) as the everyman who becomes witness to Idi Amin, first as a benevolent despot and then, ultimately, as the savage madman he really was, this film actually contains great truths within its fiction. It is never easy watching, and often profoundly disturbing as you (and James McAvoy's Dr Garrigan) begin to understand the level of unpredictable inhumanity present in Forest Whitaker's Amin.
Everyone in this film is good, but McAvoy is excellent and Whitaker is outstanding - if you can bear to watch the vileness this man was responsible for, you will also see one of the greatest screen performances ever.
And you can take some comfort from the fact that it is just a performance - you are not watching the real Amin or his atrocities which were on a vaster scale than portrayed in the film.