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Last King of Scotland, The
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 77 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by:
Jeremy Brock
Giles Foden (novel)
Peter Morgan
Joe Penhall
Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 27, 2006
DVD: April 17, 2007
Running Time: 121 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
RATING: R for some strong violence and gruesome images, sexual content and language
Starring Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson, David Oyelowo, and Adam Kotz
In an incredible twist of fate, a Scottish doctor (McAvoy) on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures: Idi Amin (Whitaker). Impressed by Dr. Garrigan's brazen attitude in a moment of crisis, the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician and closest confidante. Though Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position, he soon awakens to Amin's savagery - and his own complicity in it. Horror and betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs and escape Uganda alive. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: One Day in September State of Play Touching the Void
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Whitaker is terrifying in a way that we recognize not from old movies but from life.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Empire Liz Beardsworth
Both an enthralling examination of a horrific time and an adrenalin-filled thriller full of wry humour.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Director Kevin Macdonald has fashioned a film that is at times nearly as harrowing as his previous endeavor, "Touching the Void."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The supporting cast is uniformly strong, with Simon McBurney standing out as an oily representative of the British foreign service.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Whitaker is on fire, and as long as he's onscreen, King keeps you riveted.
Read Full Review >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.")
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Howie Movshovitz
An imaginative and original picture turns conventional as it ends.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Whitaker, in the performance of a lifetime, makes him (Idi Amin) a charismatic madman.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
An adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker's sensational turn as Idi Amin.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 77 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Everrett U gave it a10:
Highly rewarding drama with terrific performances.
Liz S gave it a10:
I think this was a great movie,,, whether it be fact or fiction, it does depict the horror of indi amin's reighn of terror!!
ela b gave it a9:
The un-until-now-highly-underrated Forrest Whitaker is brilliant in this. As Amin manages to swing from charming and almost jovial to a cold, heartless dictator. Idi Amin is rather underrespresented as far as evil dictators go but this was an unforgettable film. McAvoy makes us care about a rather selfish, materialistic young character. Even if you are unfamiliar with the situation in 70s Uganda this will be a film which stays with you for a long time. Now for a bit of a whinge. I wish people wouldn't suggest it's not a good film because it's told from a white man's point of view, it was Forrest Whitaker who won the Oscar and BAFTA not James McAvoy (although I think he deserved the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA). I do feel the need to point out also that the Last King of Scotland is rated 15, but if you have kids around 15 I wouldn't let them watch it if I were you, there are images of a graphic mutliation and a torture scene.
Haseeb Q gave it a10:
An awesome movie, and a true epic. Defintely one to see again, and very informative also. Forest Whitaker is an amazing actor in this movie. 10/10 without a doubt.
Nick A. gave it an8:
Forest Whitaker inhabits the heartless monster of Idi Amin, Uganda’s President from 1971-1979, with ease as he leads a cast of stellar performances in this true story of corruption in a country so hopeless its residents would follow any leader who rose to the opportunity. Subsequently, in 1971, Idi Amin was elected the Ugandan President for some years to come. In the eight years following his initiation, his unflinching thirst for power would lead to deaths of more than 300,000 Hindus, Christians, and Lango tribes. The number of deaths by persecution that Uganda witnessed during Amin’s tenure as President stands as one of the highest death tolls one nation’s leader has been responsible for since Adolf Hitler. 'The Last King of Scotland' recounts the terrifying story of Amin’s rule through the view-point of a young Scottish doctor, who travels to Uganda to aid the fight against disease that the population was succumbing to. James McAvoy, in his most prominent role to date, is fit for the role at hand. We watch his character, Nick Garrigan, as he is adopted into Amin’s regime as the President’s personal physician. As young Nick realizes the corruption and willful malevolence of the leader, he begins to scheme an overthrow of the reigning dictator; to save his life and the lives of thousands of Ugandans. Kevin McDonald goes about his depiction of the events that took place in a fashion reminiscent of 2004’s 'Downfall,' which told the story of the last days of Hitler’s reign through the eyes of his private secretary. Shot with precision and detailed with informative dialogue, viewers have the opportunity to dwell in the mind of one of the world’s most vicious fiends.
Greg E. gave it a10:
This movie blew me away. This a true story, and it really struck a chord with me how this one no-name doctor becomes involved in such an involved scene 10/10 This movie is one of the best of all time
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Hey! This was a good movie whether it was based on fact or not, real characters or not. Jeez, relax everyone. All this white people, black people, what about his rise to power stuff. It was just a really good movie.
