The Last King Of Scotland

Watched The Last King Of Scotland in the cinema with Chris tonight (well, eventually at least, after we’d waited for the ticket checking monkey to finish chatting to his entourage of female friends at the expense of actually serving customers). A splendid film about the regime of General Idi Amin in Uganda in 1970s, from his rise to power up until the Entebbe airport hostage crisis in 1976. In particular it dealt with his relationship with Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan, who fell in and out of favour as Amin’s “closest advisor” up until the Entebbe crisis when he managed to escape the country. Forest Whitaker does a very scary Amin. I knew that the man was mad, but I didn’t know he was that mad (as portrayed by Whitaker), but I have it on good authority that this is accurate, and you only need to look as far as his official self-given title for convincing:

His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular

Having visited Uganda and heard some first-hand stories from some of the people who lived through these times (including some expelled Asians), this film fascinated me. I am going to seek out other related films, as I believe that there are a few that specifically deal with the expulsion of the Asians and the Entebbe crisis, as although these subjects were touched on in The Last King of Scotland, they weren’t explored in any great depth beyond how they affected the relationship between Amin and Garrigan.