The Last King of Scotland (film)

The Last King of Scotland is a 2006 historical drama film based on Giles Foden's novel The Last King of Scotland (1998), adapted by screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, and directed by Kevin Macdonald. The film was a co-production between companies from the United Kingdom and Germany.[2]

The Last King of Scotland
UK theatrical release poster
Directed byKevin Macdonald
Produced by
Screenplay by
Based onThe Last King of Scotland
by Giles Foden
Starring
Music byAlex Heffes
CinematographyAnthony Dod Mantle
Edited byJustine Wright
Production
company
Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures
Release date
  • 27 September 2006 (2006-09-27) (United States)
  • 12 January 2007 (2007-01-12) (United Kingdom)
Running time
123 minutes[1]
Country
Language
  • English
  • Swahili
Budget$6 million[3]
Box office$48.4 million[3]

The film tells the fictional story of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a young Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda and becomes the personal physician of President Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). The film is based on events of Amin's rule, and the title comes from a reporter in a press conference who wishes to verify whether Amin, who was known to adopt fanciful imperial titles for himself, declared himself the King of Scotland. The film has an approval rating of 87% at Rotten Tomatoes, and Whitaker won Best Actor at the 2007 Academy Awards, among other accolades.

Plot

In 1970, Nicholas Garrigan graduates from medical school at the University of Edinburgh. With dull prospects at home, he decides to seek adventure abroad by working at a Ugandan missionary clinic run by Dr. David Merrit and his wife, Sarah. Garrigan becomes attracted to Sarah, who enjoys the attention but refuses to engage in an extramarital affair.

Meanwhile, General Idi Amin overthrows incumbent president Milton Obote in a coup d'état. Sarah has seen past corruptions and warns it will repeat itself, but Garrigan sincerely believes Amin will help the country.

Garrigan is called to a minor car accident where he treats Amin's hand. During the incident, Garrigan takes a gun and shoots a mortally wounded cow because no one else has the presence of mind to put it out of its misery. Amin is impressed by his quick action and initiative.

Amin, fond of Scotland as a symbol of resilience and admiring of the Scottish people for their resistance to the English, is delighted to discover Garrigan's nationality and exchanges his military shirt for Garrigan's Scotland shirt. Later, Amin invites Garrigan to become his personal physician and take charge of modernising the country's healthcare system.

Garrigan soon becomes Amin's trusted confidant and is relied on for much more than medical care, such as matters of state. Although Garrigan is aware of violence around Kampala, he accepts Amin's explanation that cracking down on the opposition will bring lasting peace to the country.

Garrigan discovers that the polygamous leader has ostracised the youngest of his three wives, Kay, because she has given birth to an epileptic son, Mackenzie. When treating Mackenzie, Garrigan and Kay form a relationship and have sex, but Kay tells him he must find a way to leave Uganda.

Eventually, Garrigan begins to lose faith in Amin as he witnesses the increasing paranoia, murders, and xenophobia. Amin 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 British Foreign Office representative. Garrigan is told the British will help him leave Uganda if he uses his position to assassinate Amin, but Garrigan refuses.

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 said that the Entebbe incident ruined Amin's reputation in the international community, and in 1979 he made a foolhardy decision to invade Tanzania, who promptly counterattacked and captured Kampala, deposing him. He lived the rest of his life in exile in Saudi Arabia until his death in 2003.

Cast

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.[4]

Reception

Critical response

The Last King of Scotland has an approval rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 183 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".[5] At Metacritic, the film has a score of 74 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6]

Accolades
Academy Awards record
Best Actor (Forest Whitaker)
Golden Globe Awards record
Best Actor - Drama (Forest Whitaker)
BAFTA Awards record
Best British Film
Best Actor (Forest Whitaker)
Best Adapted Screenplay

Whitaker won in the best leading actor category at the 79th Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the BAFTAs. Whitaker also won awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics' Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics' Association, National Board of Review, and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards, with at least one more nominations.

The film received a 2007 BAFTA Award for Best British Film and the BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay, in addition to receiving nominations for Best Film (lost to The Queen also written by Peter Morgan). McAvoy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to Alan Arkin from Little Miss Sunshine (which was directed by music video directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris).

The film was received well in Uganda, where it premiered two days before Whitaker won the Best Actor Academy Award.[7]

Historical accuracy

While the character of Idi Amin and 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.[8] Another real-life figure who has been mentioned in connection with Garrigan is Scottish doctor Wilson Carswell.[9] Like the novel on which it is based, the film mixes fiction with real events in Ugandan history to give an impression of Amin and Uganda under his rule. While the basic events of Amin's life are followed, the film often departs from actual history in the details of particular events.

In real life and in the book, Kay Amin was impregnated by her alleged lover, Amin's personal physician Dr. Mbalu Mukasa. She died during a botched abortion operation performed by Mukasa, who subsequently committed suicide.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

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.[13]

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References
  1. "THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 12 September 2006. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  2. "The Last King of Scotland". European Audiovisual Observatory. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  3. "The Last King of Scotland (2006) - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
  4. Last King of Scotland. Box Office Mojo.
  5. The Last King of Scotland (2006). Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
  6. The Last King of Scotland Reviews. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
  7. Sarah Grainger (18 February 2007). "Ugandan premiere for Last King", BBC, Accessed 23 May 2008.
  8. "An Interview with Giles Foden". Random House. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  9. Pells, Rachael (10 October 2014). "Douglas Carswell profile". independent.com. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  10. ""The myths surrounding Idi Amin."". Archived from the original on 28 May 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2007. Daily Monitor, accessed 12 December 2009.
  11. "Interview with Paul Vallely". The Times.
  12. "Body of Amin Victim Is Flown Back to Israel". The New York Times. 4 June 1979. p. A3.
  13. Foden, Gil (2 September 2004). "The African Play". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
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