Paranoia is one the great downfalls of any dictator, once they believe that their enemies are everywhere, and every one. This story has its basis in fact and, unfortunately, I have to say I'm old enough to remember the news reports that came out of Uganda in the 70s about Idi Amin and the terror that he brought to his people. Here Forest Whitaker portrays the role of Amin superbly, with the ferocity and intensity of any actor to portray a dictator; he brings this character out of the pages of history and into our current lives.
A young doctor is befriended by the new leader of Uganda, Idi Amin, and is soon drawn in to the political turmoil of the new government and personal mania of its leader. The story gets to you on a emotional level that leads you to believe that Amin was a decent human being, but your slowly drawn closer into the inner circle and you begin to realize how deadly and calculating he really was. The way the scenes are laid out is great; you see the flashes of coherency between characters and then as things become apparent, the fear and terror of the situations. The death and bloodshed that is going on all around the main characters is not shown until it directly affects them, and then it's like a repeated slap in the face that just keeps coming.
Watching this film was like having flashbacks about reading the news reports of the time, all the death and torture that was going on in Uganda all comes to life in front of you. Its hard to believe that any one man, or government, can kill off it's own people for political or personal reasons, but we've seen so much of it through history and more recently in our own time. Maybe the underlying thought here is that we should think before we act, and our governments should think hard about whom they are pushing into a government's leader's position.
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