Directed by Kevin MacDonald
Starring Forest Whittaker (Idi Amin) and James McAvoy (as Nicholas Garrigan)
After watching this film I left the cinema with a sense of disappointment, and as I walked to the pub I wondered why.
It wasn't just because it was too long, although I thought that the opening scenes could have been telescoped and wondered what exactly was the point of Gillian Anderson’s role.
It wasn’t the final violence, disgusting as it was. In fact I thought it was long overdue, considering the subject matter.
The editing style was a bit flashy for my taste at times and I would like to have seen some of the minor roles fleshed out more. The British diplomat perhaps, the other Ugandan doctor certainly.
I realised my problem was with the lead characters.
Forest Whitaker has been praised and honoured for his performance, justly so, for he is magnificent. But it upsets the balance of the film, which is not ‘The Life of Idi Amin’, (along the lines of All the King’s Men) but ‘The early life of Dr Nicholas Garrigan’ (along the lines of Moby Dick).
And I simply didn’t care for or about Nicholas Garrigan. As written, the character is feckless, superficial, mouthy and naïve (read ‘stupid’) and there is nothing James McAvoy can do to make him sympathetic.
I found it difficult to believe that Nicholas would have informed on the Minister of Health, having watched the violent mood swings and incipient paranoia of Amin. He is a doctor after all, and apparently quite a good one. And his affair with the dictator’s wife beggar’s belief, unless I’ve grown too old to remember the power of youthful hormones.
Whatever his motives, his behaviour overall leads to the torture and death of at least three innocent, even good, people. And yet there is no sense of Nicholas’ story being a tragic one, merely that a silly boy is lucky to get away free from the consequences of his actions.
But the film is worth seeing for Forest Whitaker, amiable buffoon and paranoid monster, moving from charm to bonhomie to suspicion to rage and back again with bewildering and terrifying ease.
I think the producers made the wrong film.
Starring Forest Whittaker (Idi Amin) and James McAvoy (as Nicholas Garrigan)
After watching this film I left the cinema with a sense of disappointment, and as I walked to the pub I wondered why.
It wasn't just because it was too long, although I thought that the opening scenes could have been telescoped and wondered what exactly was the point of Gillian Anderson’s role.
It wasn’t the final violence, disgusting as it was. In fact I thought it was long overdue, considering the subject matter.
The editing style was a bit flashy for my taste at times and I would like to have seen some of the minor roles fleshed out more. The British diplomat perhaps, the other Ugandan doctor certainly.
I realised my problem was with the lead characters.
Forest Whitaker has been praised and honoured for his performance, justly so, for he is magnificent. But it upsets the balance of the film, which is not ‘The Life of Idi Amin’, (along the lines of All the King’s Men) but ‘The early life of Dr Nicholas Garrigan’ (along the lines of Moby Dick).
And I simply didn’t care for or about Nicholas Garrigan. As written, the character is feckless, superficial, mouthy and naïve (read ‘stupid’) and there is nothing James McAvoy can do to make him sympathetic.
I found it difficult to believe that Nicholas would have informed on the Minister of Health, having watched the violent mood swings and incipient paranoia of Amin. He is a doctor after all, and apparently quite a good one. And his affair with the dictator’s wife beggar’s belief, unless I’ve grown too old to remember the power of youthful hormones.
Whatever his motives, his behaviour overall leads to the torture and death of at least three innocent, even good, people. And yet there is no sense of Nicholas’ story being a tragic one, merely that a silly boy is lucky to get away free from the consequences of his actions.
But the film is worth seeing for Forest Whitaker, amiable buffoon and paranoid monster, moving from charm to bonhomie to suspicion to rage and back again with bewildering and terrifying ease.
I think the producers made the wrong film.
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