What would it be like to be the closest confidant of one of the most brutal dictators of modern history? Kevin McDonald, the Oscar-winning documentary film director of One Day in December and Touching the Void, certainly tries to answer that question in his most recent and first major non-documentary film The Last King of Scotland starring Forest Whitaker ( Good Morning Vietnam, Phenomenon and Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai ) and James McAvoy ( The Chronicles of Narnia. )
Set in the early 1970s, McAvoy stars as young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan, living in Britain who dreads his depressing future career path working alongside his father as a family physician. Garrigan, on the eve of his father's toast to their career-union, decides to close his eyes, spin the globe, and go wherever his pointer takes him to avoid what he sees as a tedious and predictable life.
Upon opening his eyes, Garrigan sees Uganda will be his next stop and thus begins his journey to East Africa, where he is soon to meet the recently established president/dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin. Upon crossing paths with Amin (Whitaker), Garrigan impresses the former general, now turned Ugandan dictator with his quick and bold decision-making and his Scots charm.
After a chance meeting to help treat Amin's injured hand, Amin picks Garrigan to become his personal physician. Although Garrigan initially refuses, Amin's Charm wins him over and he agrees to work for him. This charms grows on Garrigan and he soon finds that he is not only Amin's personal physician but also his closest and most trusted personal aide.
His relationship with Amin will eventually take a turn, though, and Garrigan finds that the rumors associated with the Ugandan leader are true, and that the man he idealized as a great and humble leader is actually a brutal and paranoid killer who is willing to do anything to maintain his power.
Kevin McDonald's Last King is a powerful and daring film. He adds a sense of humanity to the historical image of Amin, building a crescendo of seduction, only to pull that humanity away, and slam the audience into a deafening finale of horror and awe. McDonald's use of camera work and lighting contribute to this effect. Says McDonald, "One of the things we tried to do was to have a narrative in the color scheme and in the shooting style of the film so it changes as we go through the story." This camera and color narrative works in symmetry with the performances and the script.
The casting and performances are well done all around with Forest Whitaker's portrayal of Amin being truly amazing and seamless from the character. He walks the fine line of being charming, and manically unpredictable much like the historical Idi Amin, leaving you on the edge of your seats for much of the film, whether he is on screen or not. This is definitely Whitaker's best role yet, and is worthy of the buzz surrounding his performance in the film.
The boyish Scotsman James McAvoy also brings a great performance to the table with his innocent and naïve-looking and yet undeniably flawed take as Nicholas Garrigan. Although the Garragan character does not have the colorful and eccentric aspects of the Amin character, McAvoy draws the audience in enough to sympathize with him, despite his moral misgivings.
Overall, The Last King of Scotland is a must-see film of 2006 with stellar performances by Whitaker and McAvoy, and despite the fictional aspects of this film, one-time Oscar-winning documentary director, Kevin McDonald certainly makes it as real as can be.
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