Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kevin MacDonald (Touching the Void, Five Days in September) brought his first fiction feature to the Vancouver International Film Festival. The Last King of Scotland, based on a novel by Giles Foden, is a fictional account of Idi Amin's relationship with his unlikeliest advisor, young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan.
Introducing the film, MacDonald said it was the first to be shot entirely in Uganda, which presented logistical challenges but also the "texture of reality" he craved. Though it's a fictional account of Amin's reign, he claims "the weirdest, the strangest, the most bizarre things in the movie are all the truth."
Garrigan — a fictional character loosely based on one of Amin's real-life advisors — graduates from medical school expected to follow in the footsteps of his noble father. Instead, he spins a globe in order to pick his adventure. ("Canada!" he says. Pause. Spins again.) So randomly, ignorant of the politics of the country, he lands in the midst of a coup in Uganda.
The mission where he offers his services is desperate for his services. His colleague's wife (Gillian Anderson) is slightly less so, and reluctantly resists the charms of the womanizing doctor. On their way back from a rally in support of the new president, they are called to the scene of an accident, where Garrigan impresses Amin with his audacity and medical skill.
Seduced by an offer he can't refuse — palatial surroundings, a coterie of beautiful women, distance from the temptation of adultery, the ear of the president, and, incidentally, the promise that his work will aid millions of Ugandans — Garrigan becomes the president's personal physician.
Forest Whitaker gives an astonishing performance as Idi Amin, playing him as an enormously charming man until his brutality and paranoia starts to leak through the cracks. It's early yet for predictions, but I can't imagine the performance that could beat him at Oscar time. Naive and largely self-absorbed, Garrigan (James McAvoy, Chronicles of Narnia) is likeable enough to capture the audience's sympathy even as we'd like to shake some sense into him.
Article comments
1 - Teju
I've reviewed the film, and I concur with your take on it.
2 - Wine Boy
My own review of: The Last King of Scotland
wineboy writes: 1 toque out of 5 (tm)
The only truth in this film is found about half way through, when Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin exclaims "They (foreigners) know how to milk the cow but don't know how to feed it". The scrawny alabaster skinned Doctor (McAlvoy)from Scotland takes full advantage of his new found fortune and friend Amin, including above else his wife. He has just milked the cow! So self-centred is this 'Duggie Howser'[sic] of an MD he gets her preggy and chopped up into so many pieces she'd fit into my carryon luggage. Then the bad guys with sunglasses start shown up and all hell breaks loose. They string MD up by his skin but the doc don't scream, this stuns the bad dudes so they step out for some beverages, this gives the good black doctor time to unstring him, give him a shot of B12, wipe his unrecognisable beaten, pulpy face of blood, dawn a sports jacket on him so that he can board the flight home. He walks right past the armed guards whom don't recognise him, the dudes sportin' a new jacket, and boards the aircraft (Ryanair?) back to Scotland. The sun rises as the aircraft rotates up and he smiles, watching as the children play alongside the road. Oh, I forgot..the guy who lent his sports jacket gets a bullet through the head. 'Thanks Mr. MD but you white folk are worth it'. Total dross. I want my money back!He should have went to Canada.