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33
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93
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36
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54
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93
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79
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76
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71
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69
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67
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65
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64
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62
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61
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61
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58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Strangers, The
44
Ruins, The
41
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37
Made of Honor
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
36
College Road Trip
36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
xx
Dark Knight, The
xx
Mamma Mia!
xx
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

83
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80
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76
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47
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80
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59
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55
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60
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70
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49
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83
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83
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78
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52
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73
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84
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52
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79
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62
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64
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51
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57
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86
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63
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60
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45
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55
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69
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74
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63
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38
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70
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30
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33
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53
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74
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52
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52
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71
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84
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61
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69
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61
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72
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51
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55
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29
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79
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71
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54
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70
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72
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83
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56
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86
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79
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62
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37
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64
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66
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55
Without the King
72
Woman on the Beach
64
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
84
My Winnipeg
84
Edge of Heaven, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
82
Last Mistress, The
81
Tell No One
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
76
Shotgun Stories
75
Young@Heart
74
Mongol
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Woman on the Beach
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Surfwise
71
To the Limit
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Roman de gare
70
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Trumbo
70
Love Songs
70
Caramel
69
Go-Getter, The
69
Operation Filmmaker
69
Jellyfish
68
Kabluey
68
Heartbeat Detector
68
Honeydripper
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
66
Son of Rambow
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Married Life
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
64
XXY
64
Water Lilies
64
Fall, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Stuck
62
Expired
62
Wackness, The
62
Kiss the Bride
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
On the Rumba River
60
Fugitive Pieces
60
Brick Lane
60
Jihad for Love, A
59
Blind Mountain
57
Flawless
56
Unknown Woman
56
Then She Found Me
56
Sangre de mi sangre
55
Quid Pro Quo
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
55
Irina Palm
55
Bra Boys
55
Without the King
54
Tracey Fragments, The
53
Mister Lonely
52
Diminished Capacity
52
Elsa & Fred
52
Mother of Tears, The
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Finding Amanda
51
Promotion, The
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
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45
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38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
37
War, Inc.
34
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33
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30
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29
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xx
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xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Last King of Scotland, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA 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)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Jeremy Brock
Giles Foden (novel)
Peter Morgan
Joe Penhall
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Kevin Macdonald
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 17, 2007
Theatrical: September 27, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
121 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |

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...
100
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.

100
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.

91
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.

90
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.

90
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.

88
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.

83
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.

83
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Whitaker is terrifying in a way that we recognize not from old movies but from life.

83
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.

80
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.

80
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.
80
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.

80
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.

80
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.

80
Empire
Liz Beardsworth
Both an enthralling examination of a horrific time and an adrenalin-filled thriller full of wry humour.

75
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.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Director Kevin Macdonald has fashioned a film that is at times nearly as harrowing as his previous endeavor, "Touching the Void."

75
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.

75
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The supporting cast is uniformly strong, with Simon McBurney standing out as an oily representative of the British foreign service.

75
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.

75
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.

75
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.

75
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.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Whitaker is on fire, and as long as he's onscreen, King keeps you riveted.

75
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.")

70
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.

70
The Hollywood Reporter
Howie Movshovitz
An imaginative and original picture turns conventional as it ends.

70
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.

70
The New Yorker
David Denby
Whitaker, in the performance of a lifetime, makes him (Idi Amin) a charismatic madman.

70
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
An adequate thriller redeemed by Forest Whitaker's sensational turn as Idi Amin.

70
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.

67
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.

63
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."

50
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.

50
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.

50
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.


The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 73 User Votes
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