The Last King of Scotland had a limited release awhile ago and I think it’s supposed to have a full one in a week or two. I’ve heard good things about this one (91% at Rotten Tomatoes). Some people think Whitaker’s performance will be a shoe in for best actor – the trailers certainly make him seem impressive in this regard.
So, has anyone been lucky enough to see it yet? What’d ya think?
I thought it was cool; it was well-shot, and it made me laugh and disturbed me at all the right times. It also made me very curious about the real Amin, especially after I found out that the Scottish guy…well…It’s not a secret or anything, but I didn’t know any real pertinent history previously, and finding out after I saw the movie definitely colored my thinking. So I guess I won’t say it. (About the Scottish dude in real life) So I guess the writer/director accomplished what they were trying to!
Definitely worth a viewing in my book.
I read the book many years ago, and am very interested to see the movie. I hear Mr Whittaker is suitably brilliant in the role.
Wasn’t the book a fictionalization though?
I don’t see many films but I’d really like to see it. I caught Forest Whitaker on Fresh Air today. Have a listen:
Yes, I believe it follows the fictional tradition of giving the viewers a white European or American character to care about (see Blood Diamond, Beyond Rangoon, The Constant Gardener, Mississippi Burning), or from whose perspective they can view unfolding events, or as an “innocent” who can ask the questions whose answers drive the narrative forward.
I am not as cynical about this method as the previous paragraph implies. In many cases this method does a good job of propelling the story and introduces viewers/readers to historical people/events about which they might have only a cursory knowledge (if that).
In this case the protagonist is a suitable stand-in for the 1st world, which thought of Amin as a buffoon at worst, at least until the real news began to leak out in the later years.
And I agree, Forrest Whittaker is brilliant (but he always is)…
Has anyone else actually seen it yet?
Anyone see The Last King of Scotland?
Why? Is he missing? 
Best movie I’ve seen this year! Forest is totally believable as Amin, but then again, considering he’s a $cientologi$t, crazy comes naturally to him. 
Gillian Anderson looked good in this, and everybody turned in a fine performance, IMHO. I wish they’d showed the Israeli raid, however, since that was one badass operation.
Can someone box a spoiler for me what is being hinted at here, about “the Scottish guy”? I doubt I’ll get a chance to see the film any time soon.
You sure that Whitaker is a Scientologist? I’ve never heard that, and the only connection I’ve seen is that he was in Battlefield Earth.
Saw the movie in December-damn good film. I have to admit when I was offered the tickets I assumed it would be a historical biography on the, er, last king of Scotland!
It’s a very graphic film with many disturbing images and I thought the end bit was a bit too much and reported as much on the feedback form. Forrest was mesmerizing and the Scottish bloke is going to be a big star.
Catching the four o’clock show this afternoon. Will report back.
We saw the film yesterday in a (oddly) mostly empty theater. A good film, as long as you don’t take it as factual. Amin had a Scottish doctor at one point, but this wasn’t him. It was fun to see Uganda again (we lived in Kampala for a year). Whittaker did a fine job, but I thought the film was limited in its historic perspective. At the end, when it mentions people dancing in the streets (I’m not spoiling anything here, so quit yelling at me), it fails to mention how Amin was ousted (the Tanzanians took exception to him trying to acquire part of their turf) or that Obote came back for another swipe at the treasury. It wasn’t until Museveni booted Obote that the country came into some sort of stability. Amin tried for a comeback at one point, but was sent packing before he made it back to the country.
But I guess the purpose of the film (or the book) was somewhat murky for me. If the fictional doctor was just a plot device to show the British machinations in colonial Africa, there are better ways to present that without muddying history. Most people who see this film will come away believing there was actually a Doctor Barrigan and that the film is historically accurate. Otherwise, it was enjoyable and a nice vehicle for Whittaker. Nice nekkid wimmin, too.
Nekkid wimmin? No one told me about this. Maybe I’ll catch the 1 PM show instead.
Danged if I can remember where I heard it, and in googling around I can’t seem to find anything, so it looks like I was mistaken.
Nekkid wimmen, not so much. Invented pov character whom we’re meant to care about, not so much. Coherent plot, not so much. (They actually contrive to have the climax of the invented character’s story JUST HAPPEN to coincide with the “hostages at Entebbe airport” episode of Amin’s life.) Developed characters, not so much (Gillian Anderson’s character is carefully developed in the first half-hour, then dropped almost completely from the rest of the story as if she had never existed.) Whittaker, meh. It’s a good performance (50% inspiration, 30% perspiration, 20% SNL-type imitation) but I won’t go crazy about it.
I agree that all the hoopla about Whittaker being a shoo-in for the Oscar is way over the top. He was okay. The nekkid wimmen at least provided a diversion when the film got over-long.
I actually found this rather effective. It emphasizes how the Scottish doctor was at first on one track – an under-the-radar, Peace Corps kind of life – but then found himself on a different track. The audience needs to be able to imagine how his life would have been different had he stayed on the first track, and that is why Anderson’s character is front and center for the first parts but not the second.
Coulda been done just as well with a throwaway line: the film opens with Dr. MacInvented on the flight to Uganda waxing lyrical about his Peace Corps idealism, but at the airport there’s an emergency call for a doctor to attend to Amin’s wounded hand.etc. Saves about 40 minutes of bullshit exposition, and is a little more plausible besides.
Saw the film, thought it was great, understand why Whittaker won the Golden Globe and is an Oscar front-runner.
Though the film was quite gory, it had to have been much sanitized from what someone in the doctor’s position would have gone through and seen. Much of the charm of Whittaker’s performance was that his portrayal of Amin didn’t personally get his hands dirty on screen. And the thing that made the fictionalization work was that Amin’s brutality and insanity was only slowly revealed to the invented doctor character.
The 40 minutes of “bullshit exposition” was key to the film, in that it set up his character as somebody who wanted to get away from Scotland, do some good, and screw around without consequences halfway around the world from home, not necessarily in that order. Both his initial encounter on the bus and his interaction with Gillian Anderson’s character reinforce the importance of last part of his trio of reasons and sets up the final crisis of the film.