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The Last King of Scotland
Teaser poster for The Last King of Scotland
Directed by	Kevin MacDonald
Written by	Novel: Giles Foden Screenplay: Peter Morgan Jeremy Brock
Starring	Forest Whitaker James McAvoy Kerry Washington Simon McBurney and Gillian Anderson
Music by	Alex Heffes
Cinematography	Anthony Dod Mantle
Editing by	Justine Wright
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release date(s)	September 27, 2006 (USA) (limited) January 12, 2007 (UK)
Language	English
Budget	US$6 million
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Last King of Scotland is an award-winning 2006 film based on Giles Foden's novel of the same name. It was adapted by screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock and directed by Kevin MacDonald. The film was a co-production between companies from the United States and the United Kingdom, including Fox Searchlight Pictures and Film4.

The Last King of Scotland tells the fictional story of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a young Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda and becomes the personal physician to the dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). The movie is based on factual events of Amin's rule.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Release 3 Reception 4 Historical accuracy 5 See also 6 External links

Young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) heads to Uganda seeking adventure and escape from the bourgeois life of his parents. He works in a small clinic in the countryside with Dr. Merrit (Adam Kontz) and his wife, Sarah (Gillian Anderson). At the time of Garrigan's arrival, General Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) leads a coup against current president Milton Obote. Enamored by Amin's rhetoric, Garrigan accepts a position as Amin's personal physician following a chance meeting on a country road. Amin welcomes Garrigan into his personal confidences quickly, asking for advice on state matters and gifting Garrigan with a comfortable living and a new Mercedes.

Now entrenched in a lifestyle far removed from the impoverished countryside he first came to Uganda to serve, Garrigan's image of Amin turns to idolization. He detests the local English officials for their imperialistic bigotry and continues to help Amin on state projects and family matters while working in the main Kampala state-funded hospital. Slowly, however, Garrigan cannot reconcile this positivity with the increasingly brutal and repressive images of violence and oppression enveloping the country around him. Garrigan is at times unwilling to continue his life in Uganda. At first, he asks Amin to let him leave, but when he returns home one day to find his house ransacked, his passport gone, and a new Ugandan passport in an envelope addressed to him, he realizes the dictator will not let him go willingly.

Garrigan, meanwhile, has an affair with one of Amin's wives, Kay (Kerry Washington), and impregnates her. While seeking an abortion in a nearby village, Kay is caught, executed, and mutilated. Kay's brutal execution convinces Garrigan to attempt to assassinate Amin.

Soon after, a hijacked Air France aircraft lands at Entebbe International Airport seeking asylum for the Palestinian hijackers on board. Amin, Garrigan, and other state officials rush to the airport to handle the situation. Here, Garrigan's plot to kill Amin is discovered and Amin reveals he is aware of the affair between Kay and Garrigan. While Amin leans close to Garrigan to tell him how he will die, Garrigan summons the courage he was never particularly short of and denounces Amin. "You're a child, that's what makes you so fucking scary." Amin orders Garrigan beaten and tortured, but Garrigan is eventually rescued by a Ugandan colleague, Dr. Junju (David Oyelowo), who offers his help (and ultimately his life) in exchange for Garrigan's promise to return to Europe and tell the world the truth about Idi Amin. Garrigan sneaks aboard a plane with a group of released hostages, leaving behind a furious, heartbroken Amin.

The Last King of Scotland received a limited release in the United States on September 27, 2006, with a UK release on January 12, 2007, a French release on February 14, 2007, and a German release on March 15, 2007.

The film was released on DVD in North America on April 17, 2007.

Academy Awards record
1. Best Actor (Forest Whitaker)
Golden Globe Awards record
1. Best Actor - Drama (Forest Whitaker)
BAFTA Awards record
1. Best British Film
2. Best Actor (Forest Whitaker)
3. Best Adapted Screenplay

Whitaker received considerable critical acclaim for his performance as dictator Idi Amin in the film, winning the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs, in addition to awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards, with at least one more nomination.

The film received a 2007 BAFTA Award for Best British Film. It also received BAFTA awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best British Film, in addition to receiving nominations for Best Supporting Actor (James McAvoy) and Best Film.

While Idi Amin and the events surrounding him in the movie are real, Garrigan is a fictional character, but his story is very loosely based on events in the life of English-born Bob Astles. Like the novel on which it is based, the film mixes fiction with real events in Ugandan history to give an impression of Amin and Uganda under his totalitarian rule. While the basic events of Amin's life are followed, the film often departs from actual history in the details of particular events.

The film condenses the time frame of real events. For example, Amin expelled the Indians and South Asians in 1972, and the airplane hijacking took place in 1976, but in the film they appear to take place closer in time.

Many of the Ugandan landmarks seen in the movie did not exist in the 1970s.

• Operation Entebbe - The Israeli rescue operation of the hostages at the Entebbe Airport
• List of historical people portrayed as villains
• Fictional portrayals of psychopaths

• Official website
• The Last King of Scotland at the Internet Movie Database
• Time Out Set Visit
• Trailer and Music Remix
• Forest Whitaker interview for The Last King of Scotland at Press Archive
• Last King of Scotland Reviews at Metacritic.com
• The Last King of Scotland at Rotten Tomatoes
• Movie review at The Blurb
• Movie review at Future Movies

Preceded by Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film 2006

Succeeded by n/a