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The Last King of Scotland (2006)
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Movie Review by Daniel
July 29th, 2007
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THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (Dir. Kevin MacDonald, 2006) Sometimes when already established actors play real-life historical figures they become so absorbed in the role with all the aestitics and recreations that it's hard for me to separate them one from the other - they are forever linked. When I think of Jackson Pollack I think of Ed Harris. Randomly mention Gandi and an image of a fully decked out in duds Ben Kingsley pops up in my noggin. Capote = Phillip Seymour Hoffman and so on. So now adding itself to my cerebral hard-drive is Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin. This ain't a biopic - it's a fictional tale told around real events in 70's Uganda. A Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) who's part idealist part party animal in disguise befriends Amin and an odd but weirdly touching friendship is started. Amin appoints Garrigan his personal physician and even refers to him at times as his "closest advisor". The first half of the film is pure drama - a set up for the second half which is tension thiller time. The last half hour is pretty hard to watch - there's a torture scene that made me look away repeatedely. I mean I'm pretty de-sensitized to the violence and gore in flicks like HOT FUZZ and GRINDHOUSE but in the context and tone of this film the last bit was hard to stomach. Anyway it's nice to see Gillian Anderson return to A-list cinema and I liked McAvoy much better than his cheeky performance in STARTER FOR 10 but of course the obvious real reason to watch this movie is Whitaker's powerful and scary portrayal of Amin. He definitely deserves every molecule of the gold-plated brittannium in that best actor Oscar he won for it.
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