Forest Whitaker's portrayal of Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin isn't merely Oscar-worthy, said Joe MorgenÂstern in The Wall Street Journal. It's also 'œone of the great performances of modern movie history.' Posterity knows Amin as a psychopath, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Whitaker reveals him as a charmer, a buffoon, a flatterer, a narcissist, and a hundred other things. Director Kevin Macdonald also shows us a side of Africa we rarely see, said Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. We follow a young Scot, played by James McAvoy, on a 'œgroovy bop into the heart of darkness,' through Kampala's hip nightclubs, hopping streets, and beautiful countryside. Chosen as Amin's personal doctor, he becomes enamored of the sub-Saharan high life and only slowly recognizes what a monster he works for. The film makes it all too graphically clear why McAvoy finally decides he must flee, said John Anderson in Newsday. Macdonald subjects us to several scenes of torture and dismemberment, but 'œsometimes what you don't show is more horrifying than what you do.' At its best, The Last King of Scotland captures the dread that can lurk behind a sunny disposition, or through a sunny doorway, and no amount of simulated violence can compete with the evil embodied by Amin himself.
Rating: R
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