Review: The Last King of Scotland

UK release date: 12th January

Forest Whitaker delivers an electrifying career-best performance as 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in this powerful, true story-inspired thriller. Based on the novel by Giles Foden, the movie portrays the relationship between one of the 20th century’s most notorious despots and fictional Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy).

Switching effortlessly from eccentric charmer to brutal megalomaniac, Amin plunges his young protégé into an escalating nightmare after persuading him to become his personal physician. It’s a morally ambiguous turn that gives a daringly human face to Amin, but “Touching the Void” director Kevin Macdonald paints his entire picture in shades of grey, drawing on his documentary-making past to raise disturbing and deeply resonant questions about ethics and the corruption of the soul. Also, McAvoy’s naive yet self-centred Nicholas is not always sympathetically portrayed, which makes the horrific disintegration of his initially idyllic lifestyle all the more fascinating.

While some of the plot developments do stretch credibility, there’s a subtle tonal shift from vibrant excitement to claustrophobic terror that intensifies the overall emotional impact.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 18
Running time 138mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: Forest Whitaker

Whitaker’s been picking up awards and nominations left, right and centre for his turn as Ugandan dictaor Idi Amin in this week’s The Last King of Scotland, so far cleaning up for Best Actor with many of the US Critics’ awards.

Unsurprisingly, given all the praise, he’s got a fair few more – typically varied – projects in the works, from animated baseball family comedy Everyone’s Hero (the last directorial effort of former Superman Christopher Reeve) to a return to the world of fashion that he last visited in Pret a Porter for the drama Ripple Effect, about a fashion designer going through a crisis of confidence.

Then there’s more typically quirky, Indy-fick Whitaker fare, like The Air That I Breathe, based on an old Chinese proverb and starring Kevin Bacon as “Love”, Brendan Fraser as “Pleasure” and Sarah Michelle Gellar as “Sorrow” – Whitaker will play “Happiness”. Or perhaps another big budget potential blockbuster, like Vantage Point, a thriller about an attempted assassination of the American President told from five different perspectives (in a deliberate attempt to mimick the classic Kurasawa pic Rashomon).

Most worth looking forward to, though, is the next outing from screwball director Spike Jonze – Where the Wild Things Are. Based on the popular children’s story about a young boy who creates his own forest world inhabited by fabulous creatures, if they can get the animation right, this could prove to be something very special indeed. If you know the books, Whitaker will be voicing Wild Thing – which could well work very nicely.

News: James McAvoy

The star of this week’s tip-top The Last King of Scotland has has already completed work on Penelope, starring opposite Christina Ricci and Reese Witherspoon. From what we can tell, it sounds like a Tim Burton-esque fable with Ricci as a woman deformed by a family curse, desperately searching for love and acceptance.Coming up in the next year or so, McAvoy will continue to add to his enviable leading ladies opposite Keira Knightley in the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s bestselling Atonement, following that up with a role in the Anne Hathaway-starring Becoming Jane, about the young Jane Austen’s tragic romance with Tom Lefroy – who else but McAvoy? – the man who helped inspire her novels.

Meanwhile, although McAvoy has claimed to have little interest in big Hollywood blockbusters, it looks like his first action role could also be on the cards. Set to star opposite Morgan Freeman, McAvoy will play the son of a super-powered assassin who takes on his father’s mantle in this big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic series Wanted. Shooting is set to start this month for a 2008 release – and could well see McAvoy really hit the big time.

News: Gillian Anderson

The former X-Files star has been turning up in some very unexpected places of late – who, after all, would have expected Scully to appear in a relatively low-budget political biopic like this week’s The Last King of Scotland, or a big BBC costume drama series like last year’s Bleak House adaptation? It seems her move to the UK has done her artistic credibility some good – though will it be maintained with her upcoming projects?

Anderson currently has two films in the pipeline, both British. First, due in April in the UK, Straightheads revolves around a middle-class couple who, after being attacked by a vicious gang, decide to have their own bit of violent fun – if you want to find out more, check out the film’s rather fun blog. After that, she’ll be cropping up alongside the very British likes of Brenda Blethyn, Jane Horrocks and John Hurt in the comic tale of blackmail in a seaside town that is No One Gets Off In This Town. Sounds decidedly Carry On – which may or may not be a good thing…