Rise and Fall of Idi Amin

After watching 'The Last King of Scotland' last year, I became quite interested in finding out more about the madman that was Amin. I soon discovered that they had made a film in the early 80's and managed to watch a trailer on youtube. I immediately thought this would be a great movie to watch - not necessarily because it was well-acted or directed - but because it had that cheesy,crappy quality..so crap it's good sort of thing!

So finally - and thanks to the wonders of youtube, i managed to watch the movie. It certainly lived up to my expectations. The movie does accurately portray the timeline of his regime and certainly gives you a sense of the terrible conditions people had to endure under his rule. When Amin appears on screen, he just seems to do one terrible thing after another - the movie does seem to be strung together by scene after scene of Amin shouting maniacally about cutting heads off/kicking out asians/shooting the archbishop/liking Hitler/eating human flesh etc etc...all makes for entertaining viewing I have to say..but then you have to bare in mind that this tyrant was real..so we must never forget that. Some notable quotes "No-one mess with Big Daddy!" "This is what happen to bad mommies" "i Like Hitler,i put statue of him in kampala" "i am sex champion" "for an African,you have gone very white!" "you call uganda money sh*t money!"

In summary, definitely an exploitation film BUT does portray the man as the evil villain he was.

I saw the film for the first time last night and I must say it has left a lasting impression with me.The film shows the true horrors of the Amin regime in unflinching detail.It shows the violence in a way that doesn't glorify or exploit,but doesn't pull any punches either!

Overall,I'd strongly recommend this film to anyone with even the slightest curiosity as to what kind of a man Idi Amin was.Watch the film and see "the black Adolf Hitler"!

The mere fact that there are enough exploitation films based on Idi Amin to merit their own genre in a video store, Idi Aminxploitation is truly disturbing.

I don't just mean films about Idi Amin, I mean outright exploitations films which use the Ugandan dictator to include as much sex and violence as possible.

This one's unique by taking the bold move casting real Africans actors to play Africans rather than American Mulattos with fake accents. The authentic African accents are a double edged sword. While it does make us feel like this really is Africa but their accents are so strong it can be difficult to understand what they're saying. And now that I think of it they shouldn't even be speaking English at all! Oh well, still better than those American Mulattos.

Idi Amin is right up there with Caligula as not being too important to history itself but extremely memorably simply for his insanity and debauchery.

There's never a dull moment in this film. It's fast paced and Amin's insanity provides non stop entertainment.

The only major problem is that if you don't actually know the history of Idi Amin you'll be lost. The film doesn't actually explain the context for many scenes. For example, the Israeli hostages and the raid at Entebbe are never explained.

The ending is also a major let down. It just ends out of nowhere! There's no climax, no resolution, it's just ends by saying the film is devoted to Amin's victims. Yeah right! They made an exploitation film to honor the dead?

It's certainly worth a watch and stands out as far better than any of the other Idi Aminxploitation films.

I watched this film a while ago now, and to me it plays more like an 80's action film than a genuine historical account of what went on during Amin's reign in Uganda. It's the way the film was paced, that leads a viewer to this impression. The film focuses only on Amin's reign in Uganda and not his early life, or how he came to be one of the worst dictators in history.

However, I will say this, Joseph Olita, the actor who is playing Amin is very, very believable as the dictator. He steals every scene he is in, because of his remarkable physical resemblance to Amin. The scene where he orders the group of school children to observe the aftermath of the execution of one of his wives is a prime example of the genuine air of menace than Olita manages to convey.

The film also captures much of the madness that was Amin. Whether he is awarding his young son Uganda's highest military Honor's, or consulting a witch doctor to determine who is plotting against him and then ordering the massacre of several tribes based on such advice is hard to fathom happening in the real world; but of course all available evidence said it did.

So in summary, I guess this film is best enjoyed as an account of some of the horrors that took place in Uganda during Amin's reign. It doesn't provide any real insight in Amin, but that's not necessary a bad thing. Any insights into why Amin did what he did must be inferred because of the craziness of this man, and this film does a fairly good job of capturing some of that craziness.

I don't know how these gooses end up as presidents, but it happens way too often. Anyway I laughed at the rubbish that comes out of amin's mouth, whenever he makes a mistake, he asks some British dude how to make himself look less ridiculous. Senseless killings, cannibalism, it's all there to see, worth watching, you would laugh more if this was fiction, knowing these atrocities actually happened makes it more of a somber affair. the main actor played idi amin well and kept me motivated to finish this monstrosity of a movie, being history, this is worth watching and if it helps i found it on youtube in VHS quality which made me go way back in time. I won't be watching a rerun, that's for sure.