Cauldron

Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: A & E

Media Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures Dictorial Depictor Forest Whitaker is eerily convincing in his award winning role as Idi Amin.

Horror stories are filled with characters that are frightening, not merely because what they do is horrible, but because it is mysterious: because we know how little of it we are actually aware of, because we do not understand why. Idi Amin, homicidal dictator of Uganda in the 1970s was just such a character. "Last King of Scotland," (so named because of Amin's epic fascination with the country) is the story of a real life boogeyman.

The plot itself was unimpressive. Nicholas Garrigan, a semi-privileged young British doctor, tired of his humdrum life, wants to pursue adventure and to make a difference. He travels to Uganda where he meets Amin and is seduced by the opportunity of a lifetime. Amin offers Garrigan a position as his personal physician.

In a way, Garrigan represents the entire Western world. He is the closest to the action, but the furthest from knowing the truth. This is, at times, frustrating as the film is shot entirely from his perspective, and his myopia therefore becomes that of the audience. We see only what he sees: into Amin's life, but not into his head.

Frustrating as this perspective is, it is what makes the movie hypnotic. The myths about Amin are neither accepted nor dispelled. He remains an enigma, frighteningly unpredictable.

The best part of the movie is, of course, Forest Whittaker. There was a realism in his performance that made me forget where I was. The movie theatre melted into the Ugandan countryside and Whitaker was Amin.

He blended the line between lunacy and charisma seamlessly. He was childish, infantile in humor, (greeting his own flatulence with the pleasure of a 3 year old) and strangely likable. It was this likability that makes the movie so terrifying. Amin was accurately portrayed as a madman, but he is a madman whose spell one might just fall under.

The movie itself may have left something to be desired, but Whitaker's performance was so spellbinding that it was worth every minute. After all, it's not every day that you are invited to meet a madman.

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