Forrest Whitaker as Idi Amin almost makes Kevin Macdonald's film worthwhile. The story follows a fictional doctor (James McAvoy) to Uganda, where he becomes the dictator's personal physician. Whitaker's performance shifts seamlessly from magnetic leader to monster, but even he can't make the doctor's ignorance appealing. The half-hearted thriller finale at Entebbe, where better people have to die so the white man can live, left a bad taste. 2 stars. We recommend these movies instead:
As terrific as Whitaker's performance is, the real thing is a lot more unsettling: in 1974, Ida Amin invited filmmaker Barbet Schroeder to Uganda to make a film about him. General Idi Amin Dada, an eye-opening study in the banality of evil, is available from the Criterion Collection.
Granted,
The Last King of Scotland has a groovy afrobeat soundtrack, but there's still nothing cooler than Forest Whitaker cutting down Mafiosi with a samurai sword to a RZA beat. Still our favorite Forest Whitaker performance.
At the heart of it, The Last King of Scotland is the coming-of-age tale of a hero seduced by evil. But the doctor's choices are difficult to sympathize with, and he never pays the price for his own sins. For a more nuanced look at these themes, follow Traudl Junge's story in
Downfall--which also features a performance for the ages, Bruno Ganz's terrifying impersonation of Adolf Hitler.
If you've got a hankering for drama and intrigue set in Africa, you can do worse than Fernando Mereilles's John LeCarre adaptation, starring Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. Both the thriller elements and the romance is much better executed than
Last King of Scotland, and it's prettier to look at.
5. Darwin's Nightmare
Lake Victoria hides terrible secrets in Hubert Sauper's must-see documentary about the impact of globalization on Tanzania.
