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WOW! Forest Whitaker is spot on as Idi Amin. If he doesn't win an Oscar, there's something wrong. Oddly enough, though, The Last King of Scotland is only *kinda* about him. The story is told from the POV of his personal doctor, who originally went to Uganda out of medical school to work in a mission. He encountered Amin by chance and the rest, well, you know.
Dr. Garrigan is portrayed in this movie as young, naive and impulsive. He makes several innane, cringeworthy misteps, yet he can't seem to calculate the outcome of his actions before he takes them, even after realizing he's in over his head. Several other important threads appear in the movie as well, including Orientalism, European paternalism, and the infiltration of another nation (the British in this case) into African politics. That's all a history teacher's dream, and it is historically accurate in the details. The film's website has some great stuff, including a timeline of Amin's reign, and Whitaker did a fantastic interview on Inside the Actor's Studio.
Alternate titles for this movie include:
-The stupidest white man ever in Africa and
-Keep it in your pants upon penalty of death
And, in WTF news: Does anyone but me think it's strange to see "Final Fantasy VII"? Did Webster change the meaning of FINAL and forget to tell me?
Posted in Randomness at 6:03 PM