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BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Wine, women, song and slaughter. Idi Amin takes power in Uganda riding the wave of popular acclaim after promising the equivalent of a chicken in every pot. His jubilant countrymen will come to regret their easy acceptance of a man who claimed he was “one of them.” “The Last King of Scotland” is a portrait of Amin (Forest Whitaker) and the young doctor from Scotland who comes to Uganda to “make a difference” and nearly loses his life in the process during Amin’s reign of terror.

Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) picks the African nation with the jab of a finger on a spinning globe as his escape from unfavorable professional comparison with his father. At first, it’s a lark and a culture-shock challenge that deepen into a dead-serious connection to the capricious general, who picks Nicholas to be one of his “trusted advisors” as well as his personal physician.

Amin’s jovial insistence that Nicholas serve at his pleasure contains a turn-on-a-dime undercurrent of aggression. Stay on Amin’s good side and Nicholas can enjoy the perks of pool parties, limo rides, a Mercedes and work at the president’s hospital. But, question Amin and risk joining those who have been “fed to the crocodiles.”

Amin promised his people a “better, stronger country.” They thought that meant new roads, new schools; a “government of action” erasing vestiges of British colonialism. But, soon, it’s obvious that the new Uganda is being shaped by a man driven to compensate for a humiliating, poverty-stricken upbringing, and for his country’s exploitation, with an extravagant, debauched personal life and a bloodstained sovereignty.

Feet first is the only way Amin is willing to let someone go from his killing fields; as he denies Nicholas permission to leave the country: “You are like my own son; your home is here.” One of Amin’s wives who is out of favor because of an epileptic son attracts Nick’s attentions; an indiscretion that threatens to put his neck closer to the chopping block.

Then, there are the conniving British plotting Amin’s overthrow and lucking into a way to force Nicholas to do their dirty work. Glamour turns to gore, as they clue Nicholas into the systematic butchery that is making Nicholas’s peripheral enjoyment of Amin’s power-mad extravagance possible.

Is he as disposable? Can anyone defy Amin and live to tell the world of this madman? Whitaker gives a performance of astonishing versatility, effortlessly shifting gears through the multiple layers of Amin’s tyrannical, child like personality.

A Fox Searchlight release, rated R for strong violence, nudity, sexual content, language.
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