Last King of Scotland, The

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Of course no Western director can make a movie about Africa without being accused of colonialism himself, and some critics have faulted The Last King of Scotland for focusing on its white hero as black corpses pile up around him. But although the movie takes place on an international political stage, it's still a drama of individual allegiance.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Jumping off from the brilliant novel by Giles Foden and changing a key character entirely, it dramatizes and wrings humor from the way a white Western renegade can view a self-made Third World despot like Amin as a superman blowing fresh air into a fetid atmosphere.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The film is phenomenally well directed by Kevin Macdonald and edited by Justine Wright to bring out every bit of scary volatility in the most casual interactions.

Newsweek David Ansen

Forest Whitaker, uncorking the power that he usually holds in check, gives a chilling, bravura performance as Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin, whose bloody regime slaughtered more than 300,000 people. This intelligent, sometimes gruesome thriller is based on a novel by Giles Foden.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The Last King of Scotland is a parable shocking in its truth, jolting in its lack of sentimentality, Shakespearean in its vision of the doctor's catastrophic flaw.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Drawing on a documentary visual style he deftly employed in "One Day in September" and "Touching the Void," director Kevin Macdonald uses McAvoy's boyishness to treat Garrigan's apolitical foolishness as yet another damn mess in one African country's hell.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Whitaker is terrifying in a way that we recognize not from old movies but from life.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie is an extraordinary personal adventure that views everything through the eyes of its hero as it carries him from one apocalyptic situation to another.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Macdonald has a fetching feel for the continent, and the movie has a powerful sense of what Africa looks and feels like; you can almost smell it.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The film as a whole measures up to Forest Whitaker's performance...one of the great performances of modern movie history.

Film Threat Stina Chyn

In addition to a very engaging script, Forrest Whitaker and James McAvoy amazingly express the tension and the camaraderie shared by Amin and Garrigan.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a wonderful, horrifying performance: Whitaker doesn't take the easy way out by playing Amin as a killer clown, a treacherous buffoon.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Captures the energy and exuberance of a young nation in the throes of optimism and works it into a foreboding frenzy.

Empire Liz Beardsworth

Both an enthralling examination of a horrific time and an adrenalin-filled thriller full of wry humour.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Director Kevin Macdonald, an accomplished maker of documentaries making his feature-film debut, gives The Last King of Scotland the pace and crackle of a thriller, albeit a thriller with substance.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Director Kevin Macdonald has fashioned a film that is at times nearly as harrowing as his previous endeavor, "Touching the Void."

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Whitaker's Amin is the kind of raging lunatic that only an actor who has made a specialty of quiet caginess could pull off so convincingly. It's great, and scary, to see Whitaker turn it up to 11 for once.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The supporting cast is uniformly strong, with Simon McBurney standing out as an oily representative of the British foreign service.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Forest Whitaker is astoundingly multifaceted and convincing as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. In the performance of his career, he fully inhabits the part of the barbaric and charismatic ruler.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Great as Whitaker is in this juicy slab of Oscar bait, Macdonald's movie doesn't have much to offer beyond a pair of stunning performances, propulsive editing, fantastic scenery and the heartbeat rhythms of African music.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

For Whitaker's performance alone, Last King is a substantial piece of work. Otherwise, the film is estimable but not quite great.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The story is fanciful, with grotesquely improbable twists involving the fictional Garrigan (James McAvoy) and one of the dictator's three wives (Kerry Washington). But as Amin, Forest Whitaker's command of the screen is so thorough, so frightening, so ripe with malice that you won't move in your seat for fear of catching his eye.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Whitaker is on fire, and as long as he's onscreen, King keeps you riveted.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The director is Kevin Macdonald, a documentary filmmaker making his fiction film feature debut. (He won an Oscar for his Munich Olympics hostage chronicle, "One Day in September.")

Slate Dana Stevens

The Last King of Scotland never rises to the standard set by Forest Whitaker's fearless (and fearsome) performance as Idi Amin.

The Hollywood Reporter Howie Movshovitz

An imaginative and original picture turns conventional as it ends.

Variety Todd McCarthy

In the end, The Last King of Scotland is much better when it plays it cool and amusing than when it tries to ramp up outrage and indignation.

The New Yorker David Denby

Whitaker, in the performance of a lifetime, makes him (Idi Amin) a charismatic madman.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

An adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker's sensational turn as Idi Amin.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Furiously paced, with excellent performances by Forest Whitaker as Amin and James McAvoy as the foolish Scotsman who becomes the leader's personal physician, the film has texture, if not depth and enough intelligence to almost persuade you that it actually has something of note to say.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The Last King Of Scotland makes a stronger case when it's demonstrating how opulent power-lunches corrupt absolutely.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Unfortunately, despite a committed and lively performance, McAvoy's Scottish doctor is fictional, an amalgam of Amin's "white monkeys."

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

This veteran actor is always great, and it's just a little bit sad that he has to play a big, scary demon for us to sit up and finally take notice.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Besides its title, the movie has retained the book's outline...But the film throws away the point of the book completely.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The Last King of Scotland joins the ranks of nightmarish innocents-abroad movies, from "Midnight Express" to "Hostel," where the disillusioned hero fights to return to civility.