Movie #177 - The Last King of Scotland

Title: The Last King of Scotland

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Release Year: 2006

Plot Summary: Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime as seen by his (fictional) personal physician during the 1970s.

Thoughts: Wow. I don't really know what precisely I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't anything this good. Forest Whitaker got an Oscar for his performance as the alternately charismatic and terrifying Idi Amin, and in my humble opinion it was one hundred and ten percent deserved.

As far as story, the physician Nicholas Garrigan (ably played by James McAvoy) is completely fictional, but the events he bears witness to are terrifyingly real and (more or less) historically accurate. It's more than a little scary to watch, and heartbreaking to realize that Idi Amin isn't even that much of a special case in that region's history, not really...

Recommendations: Forest Whitaker steals the show and makes it entirely his. Unless you have an inexplicable hatred for him as an actor, you should definitely go out of your way to see this movie.