Maybe if Amin had more screen-time, possibly. His character is not so convincing a side effect of being a composite and some of the narrative turns ask a lot of him – he is still good and it is not his fault that he is in Whitaker's shadow. His authoritative behavior impresses Amin, who charms Nick into becoming his personal physician. Here he is absolutely brilliant, of course he is always overshadowed by Amin, but in the scenes where he is on his own he really does shine through. As such, Garrigan is clearly present only for the sake of helping us dumb Westerners understand the African world. Not nearly as sure of what he wants as what he doesn't want, Nick spins a globe and winds up in Uganda just as a coup has taken place.
Director and his producers met Ugandan president to get permission to film in Uganda. The soundtrack throbs with African popular music of the time think Fela Kuti, with less improv and more melody and the sense of time and place is utterly convincing. Amin had served in the British army and developed an admiration for the Scots. That said, the scene with hooks at the airport was still something else! Tumnus in Narnia was creepy and pervy. For that, I give it the two stars. At first, being at Amin's court is a pretty heady experience for young Nicholas who as played by the elfin James McAvoy with early 70s long hair seems to be a teenager.
For a doctor, the guy was scumbag, hitting on any attractive married woman he could find, willing to do abortions, was easily led by opulence and flattery, and was smug and stupid throughout much of the film with this silly smart-ass grin on his face. Garrigan enters into a moral crisis as he begins to realize the kind of man Amin is, and begins to fear for his own life as events spiral more and more out of his control. I like movies based on real people in history. Garrigan discovers that the polygamous leader has ostracised the youngest of his three wives, Kay, because she has given birth to an epileptic son, Mackenzie. When treating Mackenzie, Garrigan and Kay form a relationship and have sex, but Kay tells him he must find a way to leave Uganda. A taut political thriller about power and corruption. It would've been more compelling had tighter focus been paid to Amin instead of the highly unlikable doctor character, who for the most part comes across as a flighty, over-educated twit with foggy ideas on good deeds and uncontrollable hormones that lead him to hounding after every marginally attractive married woman he comes across, including a barely recognizable Gillian Anderson donning a British accent, and Kerry Washington as Amin's third wife duh, doc! Its a movie that needs to gets the Oscars it so richly deserves and I really do want to see this again as quickly as possible.
A freshly graduated young doctor Nicolas from Scotland went to Uganda in 1970s hoping that he could offer his helping hands to the Ugandan people. The performance is outstanding, the cinematography is breathtaking, the story is compelling, the music is deeply moving, and the film is simply fantastic. The movie might not be entirely based on reality, there's some stuff that never occurred, however this movie does still manage to be an absolutely thrilling event and featuring one of the most powerful performances in ages. Garrigan feels flattered by his new position of power, he soon comes to realize that Amin's rule is soaked in blood, and that he is complicit in the atrocities. Rather, it presents this character into a real historical setting, and allows the uninformed viewer to assume he was in fact real, and what they are seeing is the truth. This time he nails a range from fearful to seductive to terrifying, connecting them with a seamlessly explosive energy. The movie ends with the Entebbe hijacking of an Air France Plane full of Jews coming from Israel.
Amin's doctor, played by James Macavoy, is the main fiction in the movie, but one would think they are watching a historical event. The Last King of Scotland is an interesting movie following the story of a young man called Nicholas as he is propelled into the bizarre world of Ugandan leader Idi Amin. But he's never over the top, or campy, or unbelievable. It doesn't apply where the wife of the dictator desires to sleep with some stupid scrawny irresponsible white boy. However, as good as he is, McAvoy impressed me more. Their developing relationship is wonderful to behold on screen, and for me was the main strength and the key point that made this movie go above and beyond. But see the movie for Whitaker's magnificent work.
She handled her few scenes as the wife of a volunteer doctor very well indeed. In fact I can only put this on the same level as Pan's Labyrinth as this movie is absolutely spectacular! In this fictionalized account of the life of this strong man, there are hints that he never had any good intentions for his country or his fellow Ugandans. Life, unlike bad movies, is seldom obvious. Nick's journey is told without a misstep and an epic, significant air hangs over this grainy, you-are-there photography. Garrigan is angered by what Amin has done to Kay; the cruelty the dictator knows no boundaries. By the end of the movie the audience is exhausted, but satisfied that they saw a worthy flick. And the impact of casual violence and its affect on the value of human life has rarely been portrayed with more vividness than in this film.
His change in character is so superb at times too that I found myself thinking that is simply unfair. But instead of the film being from Amin's point-of-view, we get the P. Whitaker also won awards from the , , , , and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards, with at least one more nominations. Quite explicit in parts and shot with extraordinary clarity and invention by Anthony Dod Mantle, there have been so few great films like this recently that this stands out as a beacon of hope. Almost immediately thereafter Amin persuades the young doctor to leave the clinic and become his personal physician in Kampala, the capital where the movie was shot , sets him up with a Mercedes and a posh apartment in the presidential compound, and makes him a most trusted consultant, allowing him to decide on the design for a major building. Before this Macdonald made Touching the Void and other documentaries, including One Day in September, about the Munich Israeli Olympic team massacre.
The first time he tries, the finger lands in Canada, but he rejects it, probably as not challenging enough. Even though granted that the Idi Amin regime was compressed into a coherent Hollywood storyline, it does not feel contrived. There can be no doubt that Africa, along with most Third World Countries is rife with human misery and suffering. Forest Whitaker's ferociously charismatic turn as Idi Amin so dominates this intense historical fiction that it is honestly difficult to pay attention to anything else in this 2006 political thriller. Quikpay and other exciting stuffs! The only true way to capture the suffering that seems to happen everywhere but the West is to either experience it for yourself, or to at least have it captured in an honest documentary. Garrigan is told the British will help him leave Uganda if he uses his position to assassinate Amin, but Garrigan refuses.