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Last King of Scotland, TheCharisma. Ruthlessness. Madness. Forest Whitaker's chilling, charismatic take on Uganda's General Idi Amin in The Last King Of Scotland stands up there with the great depictions of unhinged dictators like Antony Hopkins' Hitler in The Bunker or Christian Clavier in the 'Napolean' mini-series. It's a powerhouse performance from a lazy-eyed, rotund actor normally relegated to playing cuddly roles. Capturing the central conundrum of Amin - his enticing charm and genocidal violence - Whitaker pulls off a spectacular thespian coup that has Oscar-winner stamped all over it.
He bounds onto the screen like a grizzly bear on Prozac, a bundle of capricious energy who seduces and amuses us. Then the killing starts. The Scotland-loving dictator slowly reveals his true nature as a power-crazed king who feeds his victims to crocodiles, operates in a demented paranoid fantasy world and eventually murders 300,000 of his own countrymen. It's a terrifying portrait of evil incarnate.
Whitaker's performance alone would be enough to recommend The Last King Of Scotland as an early contender for one of the films of 2007. But there is more. Director Kevin MacDonald (better known for his terrific documentaries Touching The Void and One Day In September) has crafted a first-rate thriller from Giles Foden's best-selling novel, a movie that has much to say about the morality of international politics while never being anything less than breathlessly gripping entertainment.
James MacAvoy takes second billing as Nicolas Garrigan, a fresh-faced Scottish med school grad who swaps the grey miserablism of 1970s Scotland for a sabbatical in Africa. Arriving in Uganda on the day Amin seizes power, Garrigan's less interested in political upheaval than bedding as many women as possible: first a local girl he meets on a bus, then chasing the wife (Anderson, giving a terrific, unrecognizable turn) of a British doctor.
A little later, a chance road crash throws Garrigan into the General's world. Scot-o-phile Amin is instantly seduced by Garrigan's Celtic heritage; Garrigan is equally smitten by the General's animal magnetism. He's hired as the dictator's personal physician, despite his inexperience. "I know exactly when I'm going to die," the great dictator tells him, "so you do not need to worry about making a mistake". Thus begins a bizarre love affair between two childishly irresponsible egotists, an on-then-off romance in which Garrigan eventually realizes that he has embraced the heart of darkness.
If Whitaker's performance is the powerhouse of The Last King Of Scotland, it's McAvoy's turn that is its soul, his transition from naivety to experience to complicity and then horror encapsulating a stunning indictment of colonial power. No Good Man In Africa, Garrigan is a conniving, egotistical chancer seduced by the rich and shameless lifestyle of the tinpot dictator - he's likeable but morally flawed.
As in Foden's book, he's also a composite of several different white European advisors who surrounded Amin to advance their own - or their countries' - vested interests. Eased into power with the connivance of Britain, Amin's treated as a tool of British foreign policy. "He's a little unpredictable," remarks a plummy diplomat, "but he has a firm hand. The only thing the African understands".
The reality of Amin's "unpredictable" streak is deliberately kept at arm's length for a long time, the violence simmering off-screen. It eventually explodes in a single moment of utter cruelty - the dismemberment of one of Amin's wives. It's a terrible image, an atrocity exhibition that hints at the far greater, genocidal horrors we know are underway.
The film doesn't show these, but it doesn't need to. We've already followed Garrigan's path, beguiled by Whitaker's Amin then left to recoil in horror as we see his true nature. We're just as complicit, just as guilty. It's a timely warning about the morality of meddling in other countries' affairs, a thriller with a sting in its tail.
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