The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition)
by Kevin Macdonald
List Price:
Our Price: $4.00
You Save: $10.98 (73%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Forest Whitaker, Gillian Anderson, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurneyDirector: Kevin Macdonald
Brand: Fox
Producer: Allon Reich
Producer: Andrea Calderwood
Producer: Andrew Macdonald
Producer: Andrew Wood
Writer: Giles Foden
Writer: Jeremy Brock
Writer: Peter Morgan
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; German (Original Language); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
Published: 2007-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2007-04-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: about demons and heroes and those who are both
Summary: 5 Stars
Heroes and Demons and those who are both
The movie is about the interplay of passions: sex, power, mostly with a big dose of racism and cultural chavinism.
The main character is a naive, young, Scottish doctor, who is both passionate and shallow at the same time.
The is seduced by both the beauty of the land, the passion of it's women, but mostly by Idi Amin and the closeness to power that relationship brings.
There are lots of movies about either heroes and demons, but few about the conflicts in a person who is both at the same time.
The is naive and shallow, he chooses where to go after medical school by randomly picking a place on the globe (although Canada was the first pick, Uganda second). He is passionate, the movie is an exception to our rule of thumb that if a movie has a sex scene in the first 5 minutes then it sinks, having picked up a quickie on the bus to the clinic where he will work. But the movie shows his sexually energy as opposed to the sexuality of the demonic, theirs is cruel and is more power and control over people and their lives (through the demons killing them), lust for power. Where his is both a lust for living and a passion for pretty attractive and dangerous women. It shows his attraction to the dangerous, this heightened sense of lust by walking on the edge of forbidden relationships, the same thing that happens in his relationship with Amin.
It is this relationship that occupies most of the movies attention. How he is seduced by the power and charisma of the man, with a generous heaping of access to pretty things and pretty women, but he goes for the forbidden fruit of a relationship with Amin's 3rd wife, which results in her pregnancy and her cruel death at the hands of Amin's demons. There are real heroes in the movie, the doctor in the hospital who eventually gives his life for our main characters, who utters the line: "they will listen to you, for you are white", and who dies with the words "my wife" on his lips. And the head of the health services who really cares for the people of Uganda in opposition to Amin and his demons who care about power and fulfilling their lusts for it.
But it is this ambivalent relationship of the doctor to power that is most interesting, for at the end he is a hero, having found his voice in opposition to cruel and despotic murder. He pays the price for the lateness with his pain and blood, but the other doctor pays for it with his life. He is a kindof a hero, but too late to save either the wife or the people of Uganda from terror and demons.
Where do heroes and demons come from? why do you see so many people facilitating murder and cruelty? and so few willing to risk life to say no, that this is wrong? There are lots of demons in societies such as Amin's Uganda, or Pol Pot's Cambodia, or Stalin's USSR or Mao's China or Nazi Germany. Many do start off as idealistic do-gooders, full of care and concern for "The People". I guess these lose their naivette and/or lives in prisons and in the killing fields. But many jump at the chance to get a piece of the action, being willing participants in the deeds of the great demons. Who could not exist without the complicity and active cooperation of many. It is as much a problem for me where they come from as where the few heroes come from.
Naviette, ignorance, willfully closing one's eyes to the situation, seduction by the dark side. All to human and all to prominent in the 20thC. Why can't we have societies that encourage heroes in dark times rather than produce so many facilitating demons that make these events possible?
Amin is a tortured character, but his passions and strength allow him to dominate the times and seduce not only the naive but an entire nation. Charisma, even a bit of humor, a competence with both words and deeds that draw people to himself, he is the big demon, the great orator, the evil hero of the times. His is a straightforward role, it is the doctor and his naviette that form the interesting contrast, for he really doesn't seem to have a life trajectory, but comes like a wandering comet under the influence of Amin until his passions collide with his oath and allegience to medicine and to healing. He tries to kill but betrays himself to save a human guinea pig forced to swallow his poison meant for Amin. He takes a stand but it is a mixed one, a doctor using poison. For in the end he is confused and forced into a stand by being backed up to a wall where despite his mixed motivations he is forced to take a stand.
Perhaps this is the source of so many of our heroes. Mixed up people forced by circumstances to choose from a list of evils, forced to commit to their highest values by their lowest passions. Life is confusing and the movie is worth watching, it doesn't sort things out but makes the choices a bit more obvious and the difference between heroes and demons a bit more real.
Summary of The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition)
LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - DVD MovieAs the evil Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Forest Whitaker gives an unforgettable performance in The Last King of Scotland. Powerfully illustrating the terrible truth that absolute power corrupts absolutely, this fictionalized chronicle of Amin's rise and fall is based on the acclaimed novel by Giles Foden, in which Amin's despotic reign of terror is viewed through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a Scottish doctor who arrives in Uganda in the early 1970s to serve as Amin's personal physician. His outsider's perspective causes him to be initially impressed by Amin's calculated rise to power, but as the story progresses--and as Whitaker's award-worthy performance grows increasingly monstrous--The Last King of Scotland turns into a pointed examination of how independent Uganda (a British colony until 1962) became a breeding ground for Amin's genocidal tyranny. As Whitaker plays him, Amin is both seductive and horribly destructive--sometimes in the same breath--and McAvoy effectively conveys the tragic cost of his character's naiveté, which grows increasingly prone to exploitation. As directed by Kevin Macdonald (who made the riveting semi-documentary Into the Void), this potent cautionary tale my prompt some viewers to check out Barbet Schroeder's equally revealing documentary General Idi Amin Dada, an essential source for much of this film's authentic detail. --Jeff Shannon
Beyond The Last King of Scotland
 More from Forest Whitaker |  General Idi Amin Dada |  The Last King of Scotland (Paperback) |
Stills from The Last King of Scotland
 | 
|  |
 |  |  |