When interviewed by People magazine last October about his portrayal of a Ugandan dictator, Forest Whitaker claimed after the movie wrapped, he had a difficult time ""trying to get the guy to leave me. I needed to wash those darker passions away.""
Upon viewing ""The Last King of Scotland,"" a historical picture of Amin through a fictionalized frame story, audiences are left much in the same state regarding Amin, but not much else in the film. While the scenes showing the duality of the dictator's charisma and brutality will stay with audiences long after their time on-screen, much of the rest of the film is best left behind with empty popcorn tubs.
Many of the issues in the film revolve around its protagonist, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, the young Scot whom Amin lures away from his post as a physician for a rural health facility to be his new personal physician. Garrigan, played by James McAvoy, has some excellent scenes, but few mesh into a singular interesting or compelling character. Garrigan goes from assertive to cowardly in a rapid succession that could be construed as either a commentary on the power of Amin's allure, but more likely sloppy filmmaking.
Greater problems arise when the screenwriters tampered with the source material, the 1998 Giles Foden novel of the same name. The addition of Garrigan's affair with Amin's wife, Kay, drastically hurt's Garrigan's character. The act comes out of left field for a character who fears for his life just for asking questions. Stealing a man's wife seems like an act that could provoke revenge from any man, much less a brutal dictator, and for someone fearfully seeking a way out of the dictator's web of control, Garrigan manages to act in a way that most restricts his routes out.
It is a shame that Garrigan is so pivotal to the movie's plot, because the fact that his story never really gels together also drags on Whitaker's scenes. In stark contrast to Garrigan, the Whitaker's portayal of Amin is well developed and carefully controlled. The first time Garrigan and Amin meet, the darkness bubbling beneath Amin's exterior is evident in his eyes as Garrigan reaches for his revolver to kill an injured cow.
But this darkness is hidden away in later scenes with the pair, as Amin hides his brutality to charm those around him, like the weak Garrigan, into favor. Of course, lavish gifts and ceremonies help this cause, and the eerie nicety of Amin—when he hands Garrigan the keys to a new Mercedes—underscores the restraint he attempts to maintain over his darker side.
This darker Amin is exposed by the closed-door sessions that Garrigan and the audiences are privy to as the movie progresses. The dictator sweats violently and acts erratically as paranoia settles in, and as his power appears more rickety. These scenes also expose how he restores control over his paranoia, use of charisma by bribing new confidants and use of violence by eliminating ""untrustworthy"" ones.
Through to the end, brilliant scenes like the final one in the airport make it very apparent that ""The Last King of Scotland"" grabs his power by finding a balance between his charisma and brutalityA-—a balance that Whitaker brings to the screen with sublime execution. Despite the film's structural problems, it is this balance, as seen on screen, that makes the ticket price worth paying.
