The Last King Of Scotland (2006)

Charisma can be a dangerous thing, especially when it belongs to someone with absolute power and no conscience. Kevin Macdonald's "The Last King of Scotland" features an unforgettable, Oscar-winning performance by Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, the brutal dictator of Uganda. A powerful illustration of how absolute power corrupts absolutely, this fictionalized account of Amin's reign is based on Giles Foden's acclaimed novel, which views his rule of terror through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a young, adventurous Scottish doctor who arrives in Uganda in the early 1970s to work at a rural clinic. After a chance encounter, Amin makes him his personal physician. As an outsider, Garrigan is at first dazzled by the charismatic leader, but as Whitaker's performance grows increasingly monstrous, the film becomes a pointed look at how Uganda, a British colony until 1962, became fertile ground for Amin's murderous tyranny. Whitaker's Amin is both seductive and horrifyingly destructive, sometimes in the same breath, and McAvoy movingly conveys the tragic price of his character's naivete, which leaves him more and more open to exploitation. Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson co-star. Directed by Macdonald, who made the gripping docudrama "Touching the Void," this powerful cautionary tale may inspire some viewers to seek out Barbet Schroeder's equally revealing documentary "General Idi Amin Dada," a key source for much of this film's authentic detail.