“I think your death will be the first real thing that’s happened to you.” – Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker)
Historical fiction is a funny thing. It walks the very complex, often discomforting realm of the choice between the letter of a story and its spirit. The Last King of Scotland, based on the 1998 novel of the same name, walks that delicate balance under the fearsome watch of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. And while all the details might not align perfectly, and the story may lose focus of Amin in its desire to spin a convincing yarn around its fictional protagonist, few “true” stories have demanded telling as much as this exploration of the simultaneously revered and despised man who killed more than 300,000 of his own people.
The film gets at Amin through the persona of a young Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan (a big-league role for James McAvoy). Dejected with a boring life in Scotland, he heads to Uganda on a whim to offer up his skills as a vagrant medical doctor. Through a chance encounter with rising Ugandan political leader Idi Amin (in Whitaker’s Oscar-winning role) Garrigan ends up as chief advisor to the often monstrous dictator. What transpires from there is a sharp commentary on the nature of colonialism, the insidious power of patriotism, and fleshes out the man from the monster in Uganda’s king.
Production-wise, the film manages to channel both the rollicking 70’s and the fish-out-of-water International travel films. That is, it shares a similar sense of party with City of God, and many of the same trends seem to run parallel in the two movies. But in the same way that movies like Hostel capitalize on the experience of strangers in a strange land, so too does Garrigan quickly realize the horrors of his chosen home. Thus, while the early scenes may seem to betray a sort of airy cleanliness, it’s only to sucker-punch in the second half. The slow descent into paranoia and senseless brutality (a triple-threat via the morally compromised Garrigan, the increasingly psychotic Amin, and the crumbling Uganda) reveals itself gradually, focusing on immersion over aftermath.
Shooting wise, the camera finds a real knack in the stylized vision of swinging Uganda. Shiny cars, bold fires, tribal processions. It makes things even more effective when they dip into austere shadows and blacks in the second half. The disturbing contrast near the end, as Amin sits burnt-out (resembling, strangely, the Notorious B.I.G.) is striking and iconic. Whitaker grabs the role of his lifetime and milks it for everything it’s worth – playing up the mix of charm and deadly ego with surprising ease. But it’s the scenes of depravity and de-humanization near the close that truly affect, his ability to torture in one room and entertain in the other. It’s not a Whitaker vehicle – McAvoy holds his own – but elsewhere plot-lines are wasted as springboards to their eventual collaboration. Gillian Anderson, playing a conflicted humanitarian, barely registers in the film. And the conflict between Garrigan and his parents is summarily left in the dust once he’s in good with Amin. It’s not distracting per-se, but the nature of balancing a national conflict with a personal one means that larger concerns are often minimized in favor of examining personal emotions. You’re not likely to leave with an incredible knowledge of Amin’s actions (although the BBC doc. included is helpful in that regard) but the emotional content, jumpy and tense, is sure to leave a strong impression.
I think this is an important story. One that doesn’t have tremendous production values, but outstrips many films of its ilk by virtue of creativity and recency. Whitaker alone is worth the price of admission, but there’s also the greater reward of examining Africa. For many who can’t even identify Uganda on a map, or else have missed the destructive role of British interference in Africa, there’s a deft mix of education and entertainment at work. Most of all, though, this is a story of Idi Amin and Nicholas Garrigan. This is a chance to see Amin as more than a barbaric dictator – as a nationalist, an idealist, and even a warped child. And to examine our own role in these situations, how we manipulate them for our own results, how we can avoid them. To see through men like Idi Amin in the future we must understand them now – we must explore their complex humanity in the light of day.
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