The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Outline: Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) travels from Scotland to Uganda upon graduation. He quickly moves from small clinic to Idi Amin's (Forrest Whitaker) personal doctor following Amin's coup. The life of luxury Amin offers quickly seduces the young doctor, but it also serves to blind him to Amin's brutality.

I had a problem with expectations. I don't think it was from any reviews that I may read many months ago. All the awards, the attention for Whitaker? That made me start to expect something. I started to expect the kind of something I would carry with me, turning it over in my mind as I examined it from all sides. I still do that from time to time with, say, Mysterious Skin. I realize that I only saw this movie on Friday and that perhaps I am judging it too harshly, but that's the problem with expectations, you see. You start to expect things, and, when you don't get them, you find yourself feeling a bit disappointed.

I wasn't, as it turned out, disappointed with Whitaker. Not in the slightest. But were we, collectively, under the impression that Whitaker was not an uniformly excellent actor before this turn? I'm wary to describe the character because there's a perfect one sentence summary late in the film. I recall reading about the way Whitaker gets you the same way Amin gets Garrigan: you feel drawn to his warm presence, then he turns on a dime and lashes out in intense rage. That's exactly the way it goes down, and Whitaker acts the hell out of his role. But I found myself thinking, what's the big deal? I knew too much about the role to be able to completely lose sight of the monster lurking inside the charming boy. Now that I write that down, I can see that that is the genius of Whitaker's performance. He plays the role as though Amin barely knows himself what he is capable of until he is doing it. It's perhaps the most terrifying glimpse I've seen into a man who would be king.

It's too bad that Whitaker is getting all this attention, leaving the ostensible protagonist and his portrayer in the dust. It's through Garrigan and his lens that we approach the story. McAvoy does a lot considering the wilful naïvety of the good doctor, and it is to his credit that he can hold his own in his scenes with Whitaker.

It is to director Kevin Macdonald's credit that he allows for such studied silences. I was struck by how score-less this movie was. There were moments when I thought that a less confident director or less confident producers would have underscored the hell out of the scene. Macdonald didn't. He let you feel it for yourself.

It's too bad that the first act was so mind-bogglingly slow. I was desperate for the story to move along. It builds to a stunning climax in the airport - thrilling tension then. Worth the wait. B+