Rise and Fall of Idi Amin

Really, having always been a big history buff I've long been fascinated by Idi Amin, quite possibly one of the strangest figures of the 20th century; a common criminal, a ruthless dictator, a murderer of millions, and a really flat-out insane yet lovably charming idiotic megalomaniac. This movie had been on my radar for years but was just too hard to find. However I must say "thank you very much" to the wonderful world of grindhouse cinema for finally making this film available to me.

Just watching the first 2 minutes I already knew this movie was going to be good. However, I just did not expect it to be so funny. Amin's atrocities are played up to maximum effect of the time, but in a way so dated, low-budget, and trying-to-be-serious that it slingshots its way into morbid hilarity. Exacerbating this is the pacing, which never stops to worry about things like "character development" or "plot" but just zips along from horror to horror filling in the vague historical details with lots of violence and lurid sex thrown in for good measure.

AMIN: RISE AND FALL is certainly not perfect. It's cheap and rather flatly directed but the cinematography and editing are certainly serviceable. Acting is literally all over the map with a lot of the extras just goofing around (check out the Amin supporter who he awards the Indian shop to) and a lot of others really trying hard to make this thing a powerful event picture. Mismatched stock footage and strangeness abound, but it all sort of fits in with the goofy grindhouse exploitation experience of the whole thing.

The actor portraying Amin does it with such gusto that it's hard to remember you're not watching a cartoon character but actually a realistic portrayal of a historical madman. It makes the experience of watching this film even more emotionally complex, realizing all this insanity actually happened, hundreds of thousands of innocent people died, and the economy of the country was ruined all on account of this lunatic. To top it all off he totally got away with it all and escaped to live out his days as a wealthy man in Saudi Arabia! What's just mind-boggling is that so many others just stood around and partook in the madness. What were those crookedly complicit Ugandan generals all thinking when he started awarding medals to his six-year-old son or ordering bombs to be dropped next to his own wedding? AMIN: RISE AND FALL is sleazy as all hell but certainly no disappointment for fans of this sort of thing. It would fit in well on a double or triple bill with Africa ADDIO or GOODBYE UNCLE TOM.

RISE AND FALL OF IDI AMIN has a very special significance for me because it's the very first movie I saw on video . It was late Autumn 1982 and the video recorder was really making waves on the home entertainment front and these were the days when there was little censorship as to what you could watch on video

This may have been a slight problem for RISE AND FALL OF IDI AMIN , while not being a true video nasty in the sense that it was later banned on home video like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE etc it did become very very difficult to find after video censorship was brought into this country by the BBFC . It is a knowingly exploitative movie with some very shocking scenes of violence: People literally lose gallons of blood after being stabbed or shot , there's scenes of cannabilism and there's a very infamous scene in an Ugandan torture chamber where a man is hit over the head with a crow bar causing a fountain of blood to explode from his head

Being in such a hurry to shock the audience the producers haven't made such a good job of explaining as to why Amin became such a cruel despot and everything seems to have skimmed over . That said there's no denying that the producers want the audience to know just how cruel Amin is - If he takes a liking to a woman he'll have her partner murdered by his goons and he'll force himself upon her , any journalists asking too many questions will be given a fair trial before they're executed and how many dictators have kicked out Asian Muslims from their country while holding the Israelis to ransom ? Perhaps the scene that sums up " Dada " the best is when someone tries to explain economics with him :

" If we don't get inflation under control then the currency will be as worthless as toilet paper "

" Sh*t paper ! SH*T PAPER . You call Ugandan money sh*t paper . Sargeant take this man outside and show him what we do to sh*t "

which seems to suggest he was nothing more than an ignorant thug who after becoming head of state became a meglomaniac too . Joseph Olita while not exactly being in the Morgan Freeman class of acting does at least bare a close physical resemblance to Amin and unlike Yaphet Kotto in RAID ON ENTEBBE does at least project some of the deranged despot's personality on screen , and talking of the Entebbe raid see what Amin did while the IDF were saving the hostages !

As I said this has special significance for me . It's a film I remember because of the circumstances I saw it rather than the film itself having any outstanding qualities . It's not bad but it is violent exploitation rather than a bio-pic and when someone makes THE RISE AND FALL OF SADDAM I hope they just don't concentrate on the torture scenes

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.

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 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"!