THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
UK/2006/English dialogue with Arabic subtitles/Colour/35mm/121 mins
With a towering, potentially Oscar-winning, performance by Forest Whitaker as the dictator Idi Amin, The Last King of Scotland tells of a smart, brash, young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (a fine performance by the up-and-coming James McAvoy), who escapes boredom at home by travelling to work in Uganda. He attracts the attention of the seemingly charming Amin and, against the advice of his attractive and experienced colleague (Gillian Anderson), is drawn into the leaders’ retinue as official physician and advisor. Seduced by the trappings of power, not to mention the president’s third wife, he eventually finds himself in way over his head, as Amin’s increasingly tyrannical power manifests itself.
Based upon the award-winning novel by Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland is directed by Kevin Macdonald, who made the award-winning documentary Touching the Void, and clearly confirms his talent, manifested here by an ability to shift between comedy and stark drama and to direct actors with finesse; watch as Whitaker so sinisterly shifts between charm and brutality. Given its subject matter, the film inevitably includes several images of violence.
KEVIN MACDONALD was born in 1962 in Glasgow, Scotland. He won the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary for One Day in September (1999), about the Munich Olympics, and was awarded the BAFTA for Best British Film for Touching the Void (2003), adapted from mountaineer Joe Simpson’s bestselling account of incredible endurance. His television documentaries include Humphrey Jennings (2000) and Howard Hawks: American Artist (1997).
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Producers: Lisa Bryer, Andrea Calderwood, Christine Ruppert, Charles Steel
Screenplay: Jeremy Brock, Peter Morgan, based on the novel by Giles Foden
Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle
Editor: Justine Wright
Composer: Alex Heffes
Cast: Forest Whittaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Simon McBurney, David Oyelowo
CONTENT ADVISORY (violence)
