Der letzte König von Schottland - In den Fängen der Macht

How can an actor terrify you without saying a word, without even hardly moving his face or body? I'm not sure how he does it, but Mr. Whitaker does it over and over again in this movie. And then he turns around the next minute and becomes giant hug-able teddy bear superhero. Forget all the others, this is the best horror film of the year. This movie, and his performance in particular, grab hold of you and never let go. Whitaker should win an Oscar for best actor, I've never seen a better performance in my life. Also notable is the Nicholas Garrigan character who is written and acted very skilfully to draw the (non-African) spectator into the world of Uganda and Amin. The way his character willingly "falls into" Amin's web of charisma somehow goes a long way toward mitigating the racist potential of a story about a very troubled (African black) man. The way the interplay of the two lead character's cultural backgrounds plays out on screen moves the story beyond just their personalities and into the realm of incisive socio-political analysis and critique. This movie is quite incredible, really.

There have been so few pictures this year that are standouts. This movie is one of them. Much of what you will see is true, and did occur in Uganda's history. Amin's doctor, played by James Macavoy, is the main fiction in the movie, but one would think they are watching a historical event. Macavoy's character is so real. The doctor grows from a free thinking, adventure loving, womanizer, to a scared, concerned, and enlightened person. The viewer watches through Macavoys eyes as he witnesses the horrors of Amin's (Forest Whitaker's) presidency and regime.

Forest Whitaker, IS Amin in this feature. Whitaker is not the silent sometimes brooding character you remember in other films he has been in. His accent,his face, and his emotions seem to no longer be Whitaker's but Amin's. This movie will scare the viewer because of its realism, and how it builds up to a tension that is hard to endure. The visuals are not for the squeamish. Go ahead and hide your eyes during the "tough" scenes. It is still worth seeing this movie for the fast paced story, realistic drama, fascinating tale, and for the unbelievable acting. By the end of the movie the audience is exhausted, but satisfied that they saw a worthy flick.

Greetings again from the darkness. A true tour de force by Forest Whitaker ... the best performance of the year so far! Somehow Mr. Whitaker captures the madness and charm of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Amin was one of the first political rock stars. He used the media to his advantage as his regime slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his countrymen.

Also impressive is James McAvoy ("Chronicles of Narnia") who plays the dramatized Nicholas Garrigan, a young doctor who sets out on an adventure to make a difference in a small country and ends up counseling one of the most powerful madmen in history. Scottish documentarian Kevin Macdonald directs the film with only a few lapses in directness, which serve this biopic very well. Watching Amin and the young doctor immerse themselves in the shower of power is both frightening and sickening. Macdonald captures this spirit very well thanks mostly to his willingness to let his two leads do their thing.

As Amin laughs and tells Garrigan that "You are my closest adviser", I couldn't help but compare to Kathy Bates telling James Caan (in "Misery") that "I'm your number one fan". The evil and insanity is simply chilling. Whitaker is just amazing as he flips the switch from media darling to cold blooded, ruthless murderer ... and then back again. Just a terrific performance and well worth the price of admission - maybe a couple of times! Good for a laugh is the most unique version of Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" that you have ever heard ... guaranteed! See this one for a bit of history and the site of a real monster, but also for one of the best film performances ever.

The most frightening character in history is the man who smiles. A person who can slaughter thousands and torture even more, and be a joker, is appalling. Forest Whitaker presents Idi Amin, the horror of Uganda. He comes off as a charming, outgoing source of venom. Obviously, there are liberties taken that are there with any historical drama, but the recency of his reign give us more immediacy. It also can make it more likely to be attacked. There is no question about Amin, however.

Forest Whitaker's ferociously charismatic turn as Idi Amin so dominates this intense historical fiction that it is honestly difficult to pay attention to anything else in this 2006 political thriller. Even though he is definitively the emotional locus, he is intriguingly not the protagonist of the story. That role belongs to young James McAvoy, who plays Nicholas Garrigan, a precocious Scottish doctor who ventures to Uganda to satisfy his need for adventure after graduating medical school. By happenstance, Garrigan is called upon to help Amin with a minor sprain after his private car plows into a cow. Impressed by the young man's lack of hesitancy to take action, Amin appoints Garrigan to be his personal physician, a post that seduces the impressed doctor into the Ugandan dictator's political inner circle and extravagant lifestyle.

Scottish director Kevin MacDonald brings his extensive documentary film-making skills to the fore here, as he creates a most realistic-feeling atmosphere in capturing the oppressive Uganda of the 1970's. Helping considerably with this image are the vibrant color contrasts in Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography and the propulsive action induced by Justine Wright's sharp editing. Screenwriters Peter Morgan (who also wrote "The Queen") and Jeremy Brock have developed a sharply delineated character study of Amin, who evolves from a magnetic leader giving hope to his people to a scarifying tyrant conducting murders on an imaginable scale (at least until the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur). It is impossible to over-praise Whitaker's towering performance here. He conveys the dictator's playfulness as well as his unmitigated rage moving from simmering to full boil with a power that is at once bravura and subtle. His relationship with the fictionalized Garrigan turns out to be the plot's essential pivot point, although the contrast between the two can be almost too extreme at times.

While McAvoy admirably captures the boyish naiveté of Garrigan, the character is drawn out in rather broad strokes that make his self-delusion all the more contrived as the story progresses. To intensify the political upheaval portrayed, the plot takes a melodramatic turn into an adulterous affair and even folds in the infamous 1976 Entebbe hijacking incident to illustrate Garrigan's increasingly precarious situation. It's all exciting and even downright brutalizing toward the end, but it also starts to feel a bit too Hollywood in execution. Kerry Washington shows genuine versatility as Amin's cloistered third wife Kay, while Simon McBurney oozes cynical suspicion with ease as a British operative. A convincingly Brit-accented Gillian Anderson makes her few scenes count as a weary clinic worker who proves to have better instincts than Garrigan. But see the movie for Whitaker's magnificent work. He is that good.