Movie+Reviews

The Last King of Scotland

media type="youtube" key="iV_QgKJFZP0" height="344" width="425"

Although this movie portrayed Idi Amin's harsh personality and ways extremely well, the movie hardly touched on what Amin did to his people. The entire movie was based on the relationship between the physician and Idi Amin. While that does show how he would have treated his country, it barely skims the surface of the amount of damage he did to the people. The only time they really show how he is treating the Ugandan people is when the pictures are being shown to the physician of all the people lying dead. Other then that one scene, there is never a time that his treatment to the country as a whole was horrifying. Idi Amin killed over 300,000 people but you would never guess it from the movie except at the end when it says it. The movie did well at portraying Idi Amin's character; however, I feel it did not do enough to show the horrible experiences that Uganda had to face during Amin's rule.
 * //- Jamie Phillips.//**

This movie did seem to touch on the many aspects of Uganda's impoverished people and military position; however, just like Jamie said there was little information specifically on the negative aspects of Idi Amin. The only way audiences could tell that he brutally harmed people was from the pictures that Doctor Garrigan was looking at. The movie mainly focused on the relationship between the physician and Idi Amin rather than Idi Amin and Uganda. Otherwise I thought the movie presented Idi Amin very well in the beginning when he spoke out to the Ugandans. He told them " I know who you are and what you are. I am you" in his powerful speech which meant he knew the problems the Ugandans were suffering and he promised to fix them. He said he would build schools, end poverty and provide medical attention in the beginning of the movie. Towards the end of the movie his views changed very quickly and ended up not helping his people at all. Idi Amin actually performed this in real life and ended up killing 300,000 Africans. I feel the movie did not give enough detail in the turning point of the movie where Idi Amin started to panic because he knew the British government would not be supporting him or Uganda anymore. Overall I did think the film was full of action, kept my attention the entire two hours and also gave me a closer look at Uganda. //**- Carly Scorizello**//

The movie The Last King of Scotland shows the relationship between Idi Amin and a man named Nicholas Garrigan who became his personal physician and confidant of Amin. The entire movie was shown thought the perspective of Nicholas Garrigan. The audience did not get to see what the people of Uganda thought of Idi Amin, only how his close personal confidant thought of him. Although, it did show how evil and corrupt Idi Amin was the movie did not show the horrible things he did to his people. The movie did show that Idi Amin was viewed as an amazing president by the Ugandan people in the beginning, and they looked to him for change and they had hope in him to change Uganda for the better. I believe the movie came to an end very quickly. While watching the movie I thought there was going to be more of the movie and further explanation of what happened to Idi Amin and Nicholas Garrigan but then the credits came and I was very surprised. I feel that the movie should have portrayed the Ugandan people more. So that the audience could clearly see all the horrible things Idi Amin did to them.
 * //- Laura Baker//**