The Last King of Scotland
Written by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Fox Searchlight
2006
Rating:


"The Last King of Scotland" poses the tyranny of mass murdering Uganda dictator Idi Amin as a thoughtless thriller and a time capsule of 1970s debauchery rather than a thorough examination of one of history's most charismatic and brutal butchers. Director Kevin Macdonald and screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock adapt Giles Foden's 1998 novel, which focuses less on Amin than on Nicholas Gaffigan (James McAvoy), a composite of the various European advisers who helped Amin and a symbol of Western adventurism's devastating effect. The point is well worth making, as "Salvador" and other better films have already proved, though here the pernicious results of colonialism play second fiddle to Macdonald's attempt at becoming the next Tony Scott while Gaffigan's moral journey stands in the way of a ferocious performance by Forest Whitaker as Amin. "The Last King of Scotland" has no interest in the effect of Amin's reign on the people of Uganda because the film mistakenly thinks the sight of Gaffigan transforming from a womanizer into Uganda's Great White Hope is more significant. Only Whitaker compels, fascinatingly displaying how a man responsible for 300,000 deaths did so with the Western world as his silent accomplice.

Posted Tuesday, January 2, 2007

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