The Last King of Scotland

What’s the Story?

Newly minted doctor Nicholas (James McAvoy) avoids going into practice with his father by traveling to Uganda, where he imagines he can "make a difference" and have an adventure. When Nicholas is invited to serve as president Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker)'s personal physician, he imagines that he'll get excitement, access, and a chance to "do good" with the new resources at the hospital in Kampala. But Amin's reign quickly turns violent (he kills anyone he deems an enemy and expels 50,000 Asians from Uganda), and Nicholas watches the action and pretends that Amin isn't responsible. The doctor goes so far as to justify his own errors in judgment: He wants to look after Amin's wife Kay (Kerry Washington), currently on the outside because her son is epileptic. As Amin becomes visibly (or more consistently) psychotic and paranoid, Nicholas begins to fear for his own safety.

Is It Any Good?

Harrowing and provocative, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND traces the rise of Idi Amin by taking the perspective of the young Scottish doctor. While the device could seem hackneyed, it's instructive here, for the film never lets viewers forget that the doctor comes to Africa to "play the white man," as Amin puts it, careless and self-indulgent.

As a metaphor, the fictional Nicholas makes clear the insidious means by which the West, and -- in particular -- the Caucasian West, exploits and abuses its privilege in other nations. While The Last King of Scotland makes Nicholas pay dearly and repeatedly for his vanity and willful ignorance, it also encourages your investment in his plight. Still, the fact that Nicholas -- however inadvertently, however much he seems a victim -- is also capable of great horrors (he lets others perform them, then judges them), makes him even more troubling than Amin. He should have known better.