The Last King of Scotland
dir. Kevin MacDonald
2006



"I rode a tank, had a general's rank, when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank."
- Mick Jagger

"First, do no harm."
- Hippocrates

"You're a funny guy Sully. I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor



What do you believe in? What are you faithful to? What would you kill for? What would you die for? If others are dying a suffering around you, would you speak out? Or be silent? And how far would you compromise any of these principles in the name of personal
loyalty?

The Last King of Scotland is told like the history of an unhappy love affair. Cocky, brash, arrogant and dissatisfied with his middle class life, Dr. Nicholas Carrigan travels to Uganda in 1970 to do missionary work. Not long into his stay, he meets the newly ascendent ruler of Uganda, Gen. Idi Amin, who offers him the post of personal physician to the president.

Amin seems like a nice, jovial guy, at first. A patriot, a man of the people and a prankster who enjoys teasing those around him with good-natured menace. The kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with, as they say.

As the situation in Uganda goes from not that bad to pretty bad to worse to unlivable, leading up to the Entebbe incident, Amin becomes increasingly erratic, prone to magical thinking, paranoid and ever more vicious.

For his part, Carrigan is no hero. He hides behind doctor-patient confidentiality and the Hippocratic oath to rationalize his treatment and protection of Amin, knowing full well (or at least having strong reason to suspect) that Amin is killing his own people by the truckload. He flirts with married women and, in an act that can only be described as suicidal, even beds one of Idi Amin's wives. He sides with Amin not so much out of principle, but out of an almost sexual attraction coupled with a desire to rub Britain's nose in their colonial failure.

When the two men are on screen together, it is almost as if they are looking at each other through a funhouse mirror. The smaller, weaker Carrigan represents the tiny, fearful boy within Amin's oversized frame. The monstrous, towering, Amin respresents the inflated ego and disengenous, self-serving bravado within Carrigan.

By the time Carrigan wakes up and realizes what he has been ignoring, nay, been complicit in, it is too late. He is trapped, without a passport, ever but one step away from becoming Amin's next victim. We feel for him, but we also can see that he carved his own path. The more we accomodate necessary evils, the easier it becomes to lose sight of essential good.

The film is a tour-de-force of editing. Shot on simple digital video in what often looks like natural light conditions, the film has a docu-drama "Discovery Channel" feel in its early chapters. As the story winds out, the cuts become quicker, offering glimpses instead of lingering views of action that seems at times to take place just outside the frame, caught by the corner of your eye. Nearly the entire third act is high suspense, reminicent of Hitchcock or Spielberg's Munich.

My only quibble, and it's a quibble, would be with the general lack of background information and context. The film kind of assumes you know the basic history of Uganda in the 70s. But these specifics are not really important to the story and, besides, that's why the Good Lord invented Wikipedia.

On balance, it's better that this film spared us the tedious pontificating of The Constant Gardener. When Gillian Anderson was introduced as the likely romantic lead, I felt my stomach sink. "Okay, here comes a 20 minute primer on East African politics and history delivered by the only two Mzungu in a 20 mile radius."

Thankfully, it doesn't play out that way. For all it's historical gravity, this is an essentially personal story.


Three stars. General Jason says he appreciates a man who is not afraid to SAY what is on his MIND!