Charming. Magnetic. Murderous.

Oh boy, Guy was really looking forward to seeing this movie. I read the book in preperation for it and last night, myself and the Charming Manipulator went and seen it.

First up, it is quite different from the book which is neither a good nor bad thing as both are good in their own right. For you don’t know, Uganda’s famous Dictator was quite a fan of the Scottish, hense the name of the movie. It follows the story of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy)who after finishing medical school moves to Uganda to try and help there and soon becomes friends with Idi Amin and becomes his personal physician.

As good as the movie is, the star of the show is Forrest Whitaker’s portrail as Idi. Now I like Forrest, although I did think it was strange to cast him as the lead in Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, don’t get me wrong I liked that film but just felt he was a strange choice. There was no doubt in my mind that he was the best choice to play the Charasmatic, Magnetic, charming, paranoid, insane famous dictator . He deserves to win the Oscar that he is nominated for, he is simply superb in this role.

The film is very gritty, real with some small comical moments but also very disturbing as you see how Idi becomes more and more paranoid as the films goes on. McAvoy gives a decent performance as Garrigan although a bit more swauve than the book version of the character.

There are two disturbing scenes that I don’t want to ruin for you, but I even flinched at them.

Definately not a fun movie to watch, and not suitable for casual viewing but definately one to see. I like films like Salvador and The Killing Fields so it was right up my street. Maybe I have a weird fasinantion with Dictators????
Anyway, go see it.

GI

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Good Movies and TV shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.