The Last King of Scotland
Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.
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- Cast:
- Forest Whitaker , James McAvoy , Simon McBurney , Gillian Anderson , Kerry Washington , David Oyelowo , Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga
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Reviews
best movie i've ever seen.
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
In the early 1970s Nicholas Garrigan, a young semi-idealistic Scottish doctor, comes to Uganda to assist in a rural hospital. Once there he soon meets up with the new President, Idi Amin, who promises a golden age for the African nation. Garrigan hits it off immediately with the rabid Scotland fan, who soon offers him a senior position in the national health department. The Last King of Scotland has an impressive cast for sure but that ain't enough for it's mindless storyline and really poorly perfomance by McAvoy in a really silly and forgettable role. (0/10)
I watched this movie many years after it was released - having heard about it from so many people. I also thought that there was a fair bit of media buzz created when this movie was released. Although Forest Whitaker's performance was good, it was kind of overdone at times and wasn't too much to write home about. Having read so much about Uganda and Idi Amin, it is laughable how historically inaccurate this movie is. Most people would brush this off by saying "hey its just a movie". But its more than that, its a piece of history that was conveniently altered by Hollywood to create sensationalism. This movie will in no way help the millions of people around the world who have no clue about the history of Idi Amin. There is a lot of unnecessary drama in the movie that takes the focus away from the main historical events. Idi Amin was a psychotic monster in real life, but in the movie he appeared remarkably sane. Whitaker failed to communicate the fear and bone-chilling aura of one of the most brutal African dictators in modern times. The performances of the other actors were mediocre at best. The character of Nicholas Garrigan is totally fictional. There was no white doctor who Amin was ever so close to, and no white man ever had an affair with his wife and got her pregnant. In fact, in real life Amin divorced his wife on national radio and later had her killed and her body dismembered. However, in this movie there is a made-up Hollywood romanticism that is all to familiar now - white guy leaves his cozy life to go to a third world country, has crazy adventures, gets laid all the time, penetrates into power circles with ease, several locals die, but the white man comes back home and lives to tell the tale! Towards the end of the movie, when the Air France plane is hijacked, the movie drags slowly to the point where Garrigan escapes on a plane full of refugees. They could have instead shown how the hostages were actually rescued by the Israeli Armed Forces in what was one of the finest rescue missions in history. I think the script sort of ruined this movie. You can watch it for entertainment, but please do not confuse this for being actual history.
After having watched this extraordinary film, I realized that Forest Whitaker's captivating performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, was one of the finest on-screen performances I have seen. Whitaker's work ethic in this film speaks for itself as he clearly did an intensive study of Idi Amin's Ugandan accent, his personal mannerisms, and of Ugandan culture and history in general. Whitaker's on-screen chemistry with James McAvoy's character, Nicholas Garrigan, Amin's personal physician, was extraordinarily mutually complimentary.Gillian Anderson's performance as Sarah Merrit, the wife of an English doctor, and an early love interest of Nicholas Garrigan was also commendable, and added an aspect of intrigue and beauty in the film.
Out of all the evil dictators of the world, Idi Amin is one I'm not too familiar with. That being said, I imagine the movie's fairly accurate to who he was in real life. If nothing else, you should see this movie for Forest Whitaker's performance. It's one of those performances where you actually feel the actor is the character they're portraying. Like Denzel Washington in "Malcolm X" or Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs". He's charming, flamboyant, but also unpredictable. The whole movie has this sense of dramatic irony to it. You know that Amin is a terrible human being, but you're not sure what he's going to do when he's on screen. It's a fantastic performance from Forest Whitaker, and definitely worthy of the Oscar he won.