The Last King of Scotland

REVIEW
It's 1970, and young Nicholas Garrigan (McAvoy) has just completed his medical studies. His doctor father sees Nicholas joining his practice in their Scottish town, but that prospect makes Nicholas literally scream. He spins a globe, points, rejects Canada, spins again, points again, and this time finds Uganda. He arrives just as Idi Amin overthrows President Obote, his former friend and ally. Amin is welcomed as a "man of the people" by the populace, and ascends to lead the country with forceful charisma. Garrigan is working in a small village hospital when a chance roadside meeting brings him to Amin's attention. Amin has been enchanted with all things Scottish since he joined the King’s African Rifles, the British Army's East African Corps, as a young man. Amin appoints Garrigan as his personal physician.

For a while, Garrigan's privileged position insulates him from what's going on in the country at large. But eventually he sees that Amin's over-the-top persona has escalated to ruthless volatility, paranoia and madness. As Amin becomes increasingly irrational, critics of the regime (real and imagined) simply disappear, and mass deportations become mass murder. Amin once valued Garrigan's opinion, but Garrigan finally realizes that he is just another prisoner in the jail that was Uganda.

Whitaker grabs the screen with inexorable control, delivering an extraordinary portrayal well worth the Oscar® it garnered. He sits on a throne wearing a kilt, resplendent in plaid and animal fur, as Ugandan folk singers offer their rendition of "The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond"; he is the epitome of disconnect and denial. McAvoy holds his own against Whitaker's powerhouse performance, as does the supporting ensemble. Director Macdonald, himself a Scotsman, evidences his documentary background in the film's immediacy and spontaneity. He has crafted a fluid and involving examination of a fascinating, horrific personality. The Last King of Scotland is an arresting experience.