I finally saw The Last King of Scotland this week, and Forest Whitaker’s performance in the role of Idi Amin is every bit as good as I had heard that it was.  He was certainly deserving of the Academy Award he received.  He embodied the charisma, paranoia and bombast of the dictator in what seemed to be the right proportions.  It would be too much to say that he made Amin a sympathetic figure, which is not really possible, but he did make him believable and real, and this is a tribute to Whitaker’s acting. 

As many of you will already know by now, the story is told from the perspective of a young, self-indulgent Scottish doctor who has decided to have a bit of an adventure (and to get out of the shadow of his father) by going to Uganda, where he happens to become Amin’s personal physician.  Amin’s enthusiasm for all things Scottish helps the young doctor to ingratiate himself with the dictator, and before long the doctor discovers that he has simply become the big man’s lackey and finds himself trapped in the deadly embrace of the jovial monster.  His powerlessness and vulnerability as the dictator’s lackey is brought home in two episodes: in the first, he pleads uselessly with a furious Amin to not expel the Asian merchants from Uganda, and then has this episode thrown back in his face by Amin when the dictator realises the economic consequences of expelling the merchants:

Amin: “Why didn’t you tell me not to expel the Asians?”

Garrigan: “I did!”

Amin: “But you did not persuade me, Nicholas.  You did not persuade me.”

Of course, the absurdity of trying to persuade a man who routinely has his enemies and critics murdered on the slightest hint of disloyalty is clear.