Starring: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson and David Oyelowo
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Rated: MA15+
THE Last King of Scotland is a superbly acted political drama that combines fact and fiction in a unique and fascinating way.
Idi Amin Dada ruled Uganda from 1971-79, and like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and more recently Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin’s name is associated with unspeakable atrocities and a shameful abuse of power.
After World War II, it was fashionable among historians and political scientists to ponder psycho-political reasons for the behaviour of such men, but the 19th century German sociologist Max Weber approached the problem in another way.
He believed that certain leaders inspire devotion in their followers through charisma – a mysterious, almost magical quality that allows them to exert great power over people.
It is this approach to the Ugandan dictator that underlies Kevin Macdonald’s oddly titled The Last King of Scotland.
Based on Giles Foden’s 1998 novel of the same name, James McAvoy (Wimbledon, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) plays Nicholas Garrigan, a young Scottish doctor, newly graduated from medical school in Edinburgh, who escapes from his Presbyterian upbringing by working as a doctor in a remote area of Uganda.
Nicholas arrives in Uganda at a climactic moment in Uganda’s history, in the middle of the 1971 coup that sees Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), the former Deputy Commander of Uganda’s armed forces, wrest control from Milton Obote, who led Uganda to independence from Britain in 1962 but later overthrew his cabinet.
Nicholas is naive and greedy for experience.
In the bus taking him to the clinic he becomes witness to the nation’s rapturous embracing of Idi Amin as a deliverer, and when he is told by a smiling Ugandan woman that this is a “very happy day” for Uganda, Nicholas is swept along by the excitement.
In a freak accident during a triumphant tour of the provinces, Idi Amin crashes his Maserati car into a cow.
This brings Nicholas face to the face with Amin, who is captivated by the young doctor’s good looks, the fact that he is Scottish (two of Amin’s sons have Scottish names he tells Nicholas), and the latter’s boldness in snatching a gun in Amin’s presence to put the hapless cow out of its misery.
Almost unbelievably, Amin offers Nicholas a job as his personal physician.
At first Nicholas refuses out of his commitment to being the people’s doctor.
But on the brink of having an affair with Sarah Merritt (Gillian Anderson), the wife of the doctor who employs him, Nicholas succumbs to Amin’s magnetism and is seduced by the promise of a part in the new Uganda.
As Amin’s grandiose delusions and paranoia grow more florid, and his despotic rule – murders, kidnappings, and terrible cruelties – can no longer be hidden, Nicholas fears for his own life and is forced to confront his own complicity in events.
The King of Scotland is aptly named, a bizarre reminder of the megalomania of a man who would not only be king, but in kinship with the old struggle of the Scots against the English, declared himself “Conqueror of the British Empire”.
Idi Amin’s coup against Obote was sanctioned by the British in much the same way, and for similar reasons, that Saddam Hussein was initially cosseted by the United States and her allies as a bulwark against Iran.
There are pertinent and interesting scenes which show the rapid disillusionment of the British as events unfold after the coup and Amin reveals himself as a dangerous madman.
But The Last King of Scotland is not strictly speaking a political film.
Thanks to focused direction, documentary-like cinematography and superb performances by Whitaker and McAvoy, the viewer is witness to something more timeless – the power of charismatic men to identify their own bottomless needs with those of their hapless countrymen, and the awesome ability of power to corrupt.
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Movie discussion circle
- Are we seduced by the promise of power or wealth in our own lives?
- Do we vote for political leaders based on charisma or what they promise to offer for the greater good?
- Have you ever been tempted to accept a job or position which threatened to compromise your beliefs?
