Recently there has been a rising market for horror films that boast unprecedented levels of gore and violence. What many people fail to realize is that this genre includes not only fictional slasher flicks, but also documentaries and dramatizations based on true events that show the most terrifying depths of human nature. Such is the case with "The Last King of Scotland," a powerful and relentless film that chronicles the rise and fall of two figures in one of Africa's most brutal political regimes.
"The Last King of Scotland" is set in Uganda during the presidency of Idi Amin, a brutal dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist during the 1970s. When he first took power, Amin vowed to promote a stronger, more independent Uganda. Instead, he ordered the deaths of 300,000 of his countrymen, many of whom posed no threat to his regime. The film explores this bloody reign through Amin's relationship with Nicholas Garrigan, the young Scottish doctor Amin adopts as his personal physician.
This nuanced production deals carefully with both the wider issues of post-colonial Uganda and the individual characters of the plot. Screenwriter Peter Morgan maintains the audience's interest in both the characters and history through a juxtaposition of dialogue and visual observation. The simplest backhanded comment reverberates scenes after it takes place, and the axioms never feel commonplace, but rather chillingly foreshadow an imminent lesson.
Issues of race and class fill the story, but do so in a manner that neither overwhelms nor ignores the historical climate. The wave of the 1970s campaign of freedom, love and empowerment is the perfect setting for the emergence of such contradictory images.
The characters are introduced with unwavering purpose, revealing their true natures. The camera almost jovially chronicles Nicholas' sexual exploits, but just as attentively lightning-fast close-ups catch the hints of rage and disapproval in Amin's equally cheerful expression.
As Amin, Forest Whitaker gives a performance so laboriously constructed that the smallest twitch or delayed response evokes a sense of barely-controlled ferocity. The actor's work, always a pleasure to watch, has never been more awe-inspiring than in the uniform of the African general.
Indeed, Whitaker has already gained critical recognition for his artful portrayal, winning a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Dramatic Performance.
Whitaker meticulously explores every side of Amin's notoriously volatile personality without losing a sense of ease or authenticity. As he lies in bed, fearing he's been poisoned, his adamant assertion that he cannot be killed is strangely noble, almost admirable. It is easy to see the charisma and charm Amin oozed, which enabled him to become such a popular figure.
Whitaker plays Amin as a portly and prideful fast-talker who recognizes that he needs the people's trust and knows exactly how to win it. Yet the same sleepy eyes can widen with a cruelty and madness that shows the kind of man who could praise Hitler's Final Solution and the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
"You have grossly offended your father," he growls to Nicholas at one point. Looking into Amin's eyes, the viewer knows Nicholas is going to pay dearly.
James McAvoy, best known for his role in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," fuses Nicholas with all of the hope, confusion and despair of a man who progresses from seeing endless possibility to realizing the unimaginable destruction he has helped perpetuate.
Starting off as a doctor working in poor villages deep within the country, Nicholas easily earns admiration with his boyish good looks and uncorrupted desire to change the world. The audience believes him, and wants to believe in him.
Yet, as good as his intentions are, the film slowly reveals him as a conflicted man too self-indulgent to stand up against wrong, content to unabashedly use Amin and even bold enough to betray him in the most personal ways. But when his grievances are discovered, his African dreamworld is shattered forever.
"Last King" rushes ahead of itself sometimes, pressing into conflict after conflict without the consideration each event needs.
Anticipating a horrific outcome after Amin detains him from arriving at a surgery, Nicholas' journey to the scene is an equally fascinating and appalling mind trip, a druggy haze warped with the somber background of diseased Africans and the screams of the victims of Amin's regime. After a gruesome discovery, Nicholas weeps, but the film never follows up on the progression of his bereavement.
Despite this problem, "Last King" is a searing, unremitting account of one of the greatest atrocities in Africa's history, a regime that made victims out of whites and Africans alike. Amin's rage and violence have never been made more unspeakably clear or been so intelligently explored as they are in this film.
Combining Amin's violent acts with the complexity of his personality and the atmosphere of 1970s Uganda, "Last King's" images constantly remind audiences of the brutality that hid behind such a friendly smile.
