2006 historical drama film directed by Kevin Macdonald
The Last King of Scotland is a 2006 historical drama film directed by Kevin Macdonald from a screenplay by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock. Based on Giles Foden's 1998 novel, its plot depicts the dictatorship of Ugandan President Idi Amin through the perspective of Nicholas Garrigan, a fictional Scottish doctor. The film stars Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, and Gillian Anderson. The title of the film refers to Amin's spurious claim of being the King of Scotland.
The Last King of Scotland had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on 1 September 2006, and was released in the United Kingdom on 12 January 2007, and in Germany on 15 March 2007, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film received positive reviews and grossed $48.4 million on a $6 million budget. For his performance as Idi Amin, Whitaker won an Academy Award for Best Actor, among other accolades.
Plot
In 1970, Nicholas Garrigan graduates from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. With dull prospects at home, he decides to seek adventure abroad by working at a missionary clinic in Uganda run by David Merrit and his wife, Sarah. Garrigan becomes attracted to Sarah, who enjoys the attention but refuses to engage in an extramarital affair. After Garrigan arrives in Uganda, General Idi Amin overthrows President Milton Obote in a coup d'état. Amin gives a well-received speech, but Sarah is pessimistic, noting that similar enthusiasm had once been shown for Obote. Garrigan is called to a car accident involving Amin, where he treats Amin's hand. During the incident, Garrigan takes a gun and shoots a mortally wounded cow when no-one else is willing to perform animal euthanasia. Initially hostile to Garrigan, Amin warms up to him after discovering he is Scottish due to his xenophilia for the Scots. Delighted by Garrigan's initiative, Amin exchanges clothing with him and subsequently invites Garrigan to serve as his personal physician and lead efforts to modernise the Ugandan healthcare system.
While working for Amin, Garrigan quickly becomes a trusted confidant and is gradually entrusted with a wider range of duties, include matters of state. Although Garrigan is dismayed by acts of government repression, he accepts Amin's explanation that cracking down on political opposition will bring lasting peace to Uganda. Garrigan eventually learns that Amin has ostracized the youngest of his three wives, Kay, because she has given birth to an epileptic son, Mackenzie. When treating Mackenzie, Garrigan and Kay start to form a relationship. Eventually, Garrigan becomes disillusioned by Amin as he witnesses increasing amounts of paranoia, murders and xenophobia. He attempts to tell Amin of his intention to return home, but is rebuffed by Amin. While at a party, after doing his best to evade a go-go dancer who is assigned to become his lover, he and Kay have sex and she tells him he must find a way to leave Uganda. Amin secretly replaces Garrigan's British passport with a Ugandan one to prevent him from escaping, which leads Garrigan to frantically seek help from Stone, the local Foreign Office representative. Garrigan is told by Stone he will be secretly transported out of Uganda if he assassinates Amin, which Garrigan refuses.
In 1972, Amin orders the expulsion of Asians from Uganda over Garrigan's protests. This creates a labor shortage that tanks Uganda's economy. Kay informs Garrigan that she has become pregnant with his child. Aware that Amin will murder her for infidelity if he discovers this, she begs Garrigan for a secret abortion. Delayed by Amin's command that he attend a press conference with Western journalists, Garrigan fails to meet Kay at the appointed time. She concludes she has been abandoned and seeks out a primitive abortion in a nearby village, where she is apprehended by Amin's forces. Garrigan finds her dismembered corpse on an autopsy table and falls retching to his knees, finally confronting the inhumanity of Amin's regime, and decides killing him will end it all. A hijacked aircraft is flown to Entebbe Airport by pro-Palestinian hijackers seeking asylum. Amin, sensing a major publicity opportunity, rushes to the scene, taking Garrigan along. At the airport, one of Amin's bodyguards discovers Garrigan's plot to poison Amin under the ruse of giving him pills for a headache. Garrigan is beaten by Amin's henchmen before Amin arrives and discloses he is aware of the relationship with Kay. As punishment, Garrigan's chest is pierced with meat hooks before he is hanged by his skin.
Amin arranges a plane for the release of non-Israeli passengers, and the torturers leave Garrigan unconscious on the floor while they relax in another room. Garrigan's medical colleague, Dr. Junju, takes advantage of the opportunity to rescue him. He urges Garrigan to tell the world the truth about Amin's regime, asserting that the world will believe Garrigan because he is white. Junju gives Garrigan his own jacket, enabling him to mingle unnoticed with the crowd of freed hostages and board the plane. When the torturers discover Garrigan's absence, Junju is killed for aiding in the escape. While Amin is being informed of Garrigan's escape, which he is too late to prevent, Garrigan boards the plane and tearfully remembers the people of Uganda. An epilogue reveals that the Entebbe incident irreparably ruined Amin's reputation in the international community and in 1979 he made a foolhardy decision to invade Tanzania, which promptly counterattacked and captured Kampala, overthrowing him. He lived the rest of his life in exile in Saudi Arabia until his death in 2003.
Historical accuracy
While the character of Idi Amin and some of the events surrounding him in the film are mostly based on fact, Garrigan is a fictional character. Foden has acknowledged that one real-life figure who contributed to the character Garrigan was English-born Bob Astles, who worked with Amin.[4] Another real-life figure who has been mentioned in connection with Garrigan is Scottish doctor Wilson Carswell.[5] Like the novel on which it is based, the film mixes fiction with real events to give an impression of Amin and Uganda under his rule. While the basic arc of Amin's rule is followed, the events in the film depart from both actual history and the plot and characters in Foden's novel.
In real life and in the book, Kay Amin was impregnated by her lover, who was a Ugandan physician (given a different name in the book than in real life). She died during a botched abortion performed by him, and he subsequently committed suicide.[6] Astles said in a lengthy interview for The Times with the journalist Paul Vallely that her body was dismembered by her lover so it could be hidden and was then sewn back together on Amin's orders.[7] Amin never had a son named Campbell.
Contrary to the wording of the film's coda stating, "48 hours later, Israeli Forces stormed Entebbe and liberated all but one of the hostages", three hostages died during Operation Entebbe. The body of a fourth hostage, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, who was killed by Uganda Army officers at a nearby hospital in retaliation for Israel's actions, was eventually returned to Israel.[8] The murder of Dora Bloch is depicted accurately in the book but not mentioned at all in the film. Also when the non-Israeli hostages were released, they are seen being flown out of Entebbe, Uganda to Paris, France on an Antonov An-12 aircraft, but in real life the non-Israeli hostages were flown to Paris on a chartered Air France Boeing 747.[9][10]
According to Foden, the film's depiction of Amin is comparable with the Shakespearean character Macbeth, whom he had in mind when writing the novel.[11]
Release
The Last King of Scotland received a limited release in the United States on 27 September 2006, a UK release on 12 January 2007, a French release on 14 February 2007, and a German release on 15 March 2007. In the United States and Canada, the film earned $17,606,684 at the box office. In the United Kingdom, the film took $11,131,918. Its combined worldwide gross was $48,362,207.[12]
Reception
Critical response
The Last King of Scotland has an approval rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 185 reviews, with an average score of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Forest Whitaker's performance as real-life megalomaniac dictator Idi Amin powers this fictionalized political thriller, a blunt and brutal tale about power and corruption".[13] At Metacritic, the film has a score of 74 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[14]
Accolades
Whitaker won in the leading actor category at the Academy Awards, the British Academy Film Awards, the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Whitaker also won awards from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association, the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics' Circle, the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association, and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards, with at least one more nominations.
As of 2022, Whitaker from The Last King of Scotland and Helen Mirren from The Queen are the only two lead performances for portraying real-life leaders, and is the only lead actor to ever sweep the rarest achievements known as "The Big Four" critics awards (LAFCA, NBR, NYFCC, NSFC) as well as win the Oscar, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, and SAG awards in the same year.
The film was received well in Uganda, where it premiered two days before Whitaker won the Academy Award.[15]
