The Last King of Scotland

Forrest Whittaker delivers an awesome performance as the charming, paranoid rogue Idi Amin - very human, in a role that could easily have been caricature. A study in how brutal dictators use their personal magnetism and imaginary vision to ensnare their... Full review

The movie's storyline is so intriguing to start, first because its mostly true, second because it's actual very interesting. Forrest Whitaker's performance in this movie really captures the essence of a crazy political dictator. He is a great friend when you... Full review

The last king of Scotland is scorcher of a film that follows the story of the horrid dictatorship that took over Uganda in the 1970s. The movie is seen completely through the eyes of young Nicolas Garrigan( James Mcavoy)a young... Full review

Forest Whitaker's ferociously charismatic turn as Idi Amin so dominates this intense historical fiction that it is honestly difficult to pay attention to anything else in this 2006 political thriller. Even though he is definitively the emotional locus, he is... Full review

Greetings again from the darkness. A true tour de force by Forest Whitaker ... the best performance of the year so far! Somehow Mr. Whitaker captures the madness and charm of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Amin was one of the... Full review

How can an actor terrify you without saying a word, without even hardly moving his face or body? I'm not sure how he does it, but Mr. Whitaker does it over and over again in this movie. And then he... Full review

With "The Last King of Scotland," Kevin MacDonald has created a bracing, exciting and totally satisfying thriller.Forest Whitaker gives a titanic performance as Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator who rose to power in the 1970s. James McAvoy plays Nicholas Garrigan, a... Full review

"The Last King of Scotland" is a slickly made powder keg of a film about Idi Amin's (Forest Whitaker) horrific dictatorship over Uganda in the 1970's as seen through the eyes of his fictionalized Scottish doctor (James McAvoy). Whitaker is... Full review

In this film Kevin Macdonald, a Scot, directs James McAvoy, a Scot, as Nicholas Garrigan, a brash, spirited, and foolish young doctor just out of medical school in the early 1970's who overnight becomes a close associate of Idi Amin... Full review

Life, unlike bad movies, is seldom obvious. In life, murderous dictators don't appear - especially at first - as mustache-twirling Snidley Whiplash figures, cackling madly (although Mussolini came close). The scary truth about monsters is that they are three-dimensional beings,... Full review

Unfortunately, Macdonald is not skilled enough to meld the three, and we're left with increasingly absurd lurches of plot. A young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), randomly flits off to Uganda in the early 1970s looking for fun and adventure. ... Full Review

Macdonald's film is a good one and well acted, but its viewpoint from inside the palace walls makes it more intimate, and therefore oddly, less devastating, drama. The Last King of Scotland" may be seen as this year's "Hotel Rwanda," but that film firstly was seen through the eyes of a native and secondly was more powerful in presenting the horrors that afflicted an entire country. ... Full Review

At a rural clinic Garrigan has taken up with the medical director's wife, played movingly by Gillian Anderson, who is particularly good whenever playing a Brit of one sort or another. This affair feels like a stretch in terms of credibility, more a function of plot than character. ... Full Review

The Last King of Scotland is incredibly charming, yet still tragically unfamiliar to a good portion of the American public Frankly, The Last King of Scotland isnt that great of a film. Much like the monstrous dictator for which the film is titled ... Full Review

Considering Macdonald's earlier work, I suppose The Last King of Scotland is a bit of a letdown, and trouble always arises when fiction and fact tread so closely together. Macdonald has a strong handle on that Faustian bargain, bolstered by Whitaker's brilliant performance and McAvoy's quieter desperation. ... Full Review

St Albans is a sedate sort of city. Sleepy, wealthy, suburban. There's a superb medieval abbey, which has doubled for Westminster Abbey on film (in the James Bond spoof Johnny English), and a few Roman remnants, which came from the ... Full Article

If Fight Club and The Matrix were your cup of tea, then you won't want to miss James McAvoy's latest movie, Wanted. Following breakthrough roles in a pair of award-winning dramas - The Last King of Scotland and Atonement - ... Full Article

Christian Mungiu's 4 months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, winner of the Golden Palm in Cannes, is one of the favourites to take top honours at the 20th European Film Awards being held in the German capital. ... Full Article

If the Cricket is a little more green than usual today, it's envy.The 34th Telluride Film Festival starts today in the little ski town of Telluride, Colo., and the Cricket isn't there to enjoy it. ... Full Article

Look at you.Is there one thing you have done that is good?--Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) Nicholas (James McAvoy) wants to leave home. He thinks he deserves better than the rut of a life he sees laid out before... ... Full Article