the last king of scotland

[pete]

trailer

from the website:
A powerful thriller that recreates on screen the world of Uganda under the mad dictatorship of Idi Amin. Deftly mixing fact and fiction and startlingly resonant with today's world, the film features a tour de force performance from Forest Whitaker as Amin.

just came back from it.  it was an intense and brutal movie, beautifully acted and shot.  the glitz and glamour of politics and power have never felt this real.  it was a real jarring film, as it depicted a wide spectrum of power a lust--from some absurdly funny moments to pretty gory tortures, sometimes within moments of each other.  the soundtrack reflected the wide range too and is one of this year's best.  I've never seen Forest Whitaker like this before, but here he's convincingly larger than life and charismatic as hell.  its portrayal of a populist dictator is a bit cliched and I'm not really sure of the point of a movie that tracks a disposed dictator from 30 years ago through the eyes of a scottish kid, however, cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (the best working cinematographer second only to Chris Doyle) and great acting from all around really made the film immensely watchable.  Whitaker deserves a best actor nomination at least. 

[Derek237]

This is a movie that makes my giddy-and-excited-to-see list for sure. I went to see Science Of Sleep the other day, and saw a huge poster for Last King Of Scotland at the cinema. I was so excited and worked up about it that it was pretty embarrasing.

[Kal]

Nobody saw this?? No comments?? Weird.

Anyways, I saw this tonight and liked it very much. I thought Forest Whitaker was great, but not sure if he was better than Di Caprio or Will Smith. James McAvoy was also very good in this. I had seen him before in Bright Young Things and actually met him in person during the Miami Film Festival that year. I was surprised after that he did not do anything good, but this was very good.

SPOILERS

One thing that surprised me is that as much as everybody knows that the guy was bad, and that he is a killer, etc. The movie does not show much of that. Up to the very end, when u clearly see that he is crazy, he seems excentric, paranoid, extremist but he does not look like a 'Saddam Hussein' type of guy, or gives u the impression that he killed 300,000 people. The other guy however, who is supposed to be the 'good guy' at the end, is the one that betrays him in several aspects. Besides, its unclear at some point because even though Amin acts crazy, the guy has a lot of influence over him and he does not use it correctly.

Anyways the movie was good, but I think there are a couple of problems in the script. Either that or then Whitaker's performance is not as good as we all believe.

[Derek237]

I finally saw it today and I really, really enjoyed it. It definitely does sidestep a lot of details about Amin, and focuses more on the character Nicholas. Not really a bad thing, but don't go in expecting a portrait of Amin and his politics. More than anything I think it works as a thriller- a really good thriler- and a morality tale as well. Think Midnight Express meets Wall Street. Something like that. 

But yes I'm glad I finally got to see it and it is a worth while movie. Whitaker is phenomenal, he really is. Completely deserves the praise. He's one of those actors, at least from my point of view, that you'd never expect to see a performance like this from. I mean, really, such a surprising turn for him. What's he been doing lately? Panic Room, Phone Booth? Now he's a Golden Globe winner. And Oscar chances are fairly good for him, too. It's one of those kinds of roles where you just CAN'T WAIT to see him on screen. His first appearance is really memorable, too. Just a classic role. All that said, the movie is really more about McAvoy's character. I thought he played a character with more depth and detail but Whitaker no doubt delivers the better performance, especially considering what he has to work with, which when you think about it in terms of the script, is not that much. I'll be rooting for him on Oscar night. That's for sure.

[Gold Trumpet]

SPOILERS

Because of the year that was 2006, this could be one of the better films of that year.

The film has so much going for it. The performances (outside even of Whitticker's praised role) were all excellent, with James McCovy potentially even stealing the film. And the filmmaking is excellent. Kevin Macdonald, someone I am not familiar with, is excellent with composition and rhythm as the film picks up speed as the story gets more brutal and allows his editing to play surreal imagery on top of the gruesome imagery. The effect isn't simple realism. Its a conveying of madness in a foreign world.

But, the film shows the pitfalls of its source. The film was adapted from a novel. I hear it is well written with good description and great ideas, but the scenario bleeds classic paperback novel cheesiness. It is unlikely that a visiting Scottish doctor (who chose Uganda on a whim) would be made personal doctor to Idi Amin based on the luck of a traffic accident and then made personal ad visor simply because he was charming. The scenario is more likely in a high minded comedy, but not in a film that is trying to paint a vivid portrait of Uganda and Idi Amin. The story gets more unbelievable with an unlikely romance and the in coporation of a major historical event to the plot finale.

When I was watching the film, I was reminded of Fernando Meirelles' excellent film, The Constant Gardener. Meirelles also was adapting a popular political travel novel like The Last King of Scotland. The similarities is that both filmmakers were excellent to lift their stories and surround the film with an amazing cast. It's just that I think Meirelles is the better filmmaker. He told the story to mostly not remind the viewer of the source of the story. He was excellent with painting the story as ambiguous and focused on the themes. Then his filmmaking was so close to the action that the result was sometimes capturing a personal experience on camera. Only at the end with a couple of tidy conclusions was I truly reminded that it was adapted from a genre novel.

I'm also just guessing about the novels. Maybe The Constant Gardener was already adequately structured and made for an easier adaptation, but the only thing that kept the filmmakers of The Last King of Scotland to equal excellence was, frankly, incompetence. This story had to reek of ridiculousness when simplified to a screenplay. The scenario is ludicrous and the climax is even worse. The Last King of Scotland is excellent in many ways, but a longshot from being the complete work.