The Last King Of Scotland[2006]

The Last King of Scotland is a 2006 British drama 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.

Story

The film opens in Scotland in 1970 as Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) graduates from medical school. Faced with the dull prospect of joining his father in the family's village practice, he decides instead to seek adventure abroad by taking up a position in a Ugandan missionary clinic run by Dr. David Merrit (Adam Kotz) and his wife, Sarah (Gillian Anderson). Garrigan quickly becomes attracted to Sarah, who enjoys his attention but refuses to engage in an extramarital with him.

Coinciding with Garrigan's arrival in Uganda, General Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) is concluding a successful coup d’état to overthrow incumbent president Milton Obote. The two men meet at the scene of a minor car accident, where Garrigan treats Amin's injured hand. Amin, who admires Scotland for its long resilience under English rule, is delighted to discover the doctor's nationality. Garrigan is impressed by Amin's charisma and affability, and by his vision of an egalitarian golden age for Uganda. Their friendship is cemented when Amin exchanges his military shirt for Garrigan's "Scotland" T-shirt. Some days later, Amin invites Garrigan to become his personal physician and to take charge of modernising the country's health care system.

Garrigan soon becomes the president's trusted confidant. Amin comes to rely on him for much more than medical care, even consulting him on matters of state. Although Garrigan is aware of the shootings and executions going on around Kampala, he accepts Amin's explanation that cracking down on Obote's remaining supporters will bring a lasting peace to the country. However, Garrigan's privileged lifestyle, obviously funded through the economic exploitation of the impoverished Ugandan people, belies the rectitude of Amin's government.

Garrigan discovers that the polygamous leader has ostracised the youngest of his three wives, Kay (Kerry Washington), because she has given birth to an epileptic son, Mackenzie (Apollo Okwenje Omamo). In the course of treating Mackenzie's condition, Garrigan falls for Kay, and the two become lovers.

Garrigan increasingly loses faith in Amin as he witnesses the president's increasing paranoia, brutality and xenophobia. Amin, who trusts no one, replaces the doctor's British passport with a Ugandan one to prevent him from escaping. The discovery of the Ugandan passport leads Garrigan to a frantic visit for help to the local British Foreign Office representative; he is told that, due to his complicity with the regime's atrocities, the British will help him to leave Uganda only on one condition: Garrigan must use his role as Amin's personal physician to assassinate the dictator. Garrigan is unwilling.

His situation worsens when Kay informs him that she has become pregnant with his child. Naturally if her pregnancy becomes known to Amin, she will be murdered for her infidelity, so she begs Garrigan to carry out a secret abortion. Delayed by Amin's command that he attend a press conference for Western journalists, Garrigan fails to meet Kay at the appointed time; she concludes that she has been abandoned to her fate, and seeks out a primitive abortion in a nearby village, where she is apprehended by Amin's forces. When Garrigan searches for her, he finds only her savagely mutilated corpse. As he falls retching to his knees, Garrigan finally confronts the palpable inhumanity of Amin's regime, and decides that killing him is the only way to put a stop to it all.

Shortly thereafter, a hijacked aircraft is flown to Entebbe by pro-Palestinian hijackers seeking asylum from agents of international law. Amin, intending to help the "Palestinian brothers", rushes to the scene, taking Garrigan along. At the airport, one of Amin's bodyguards discovers Garrigan's plot to poison Amin, under the ruse of giving him pills for a headache. His treachery revealed, Garrigan is beaten by Amin's henchmen. Amin himself arrives and discloses that he is aware of the doctor's relationship with Kay. He has his henchmen pierce Garrigan's chest with meat hooks and thus hang him by the skin.

While Amin arranges the release of all hostages except Israelis, Garrigan's torturers temporarily leave him broken and bleeding on the floor while they relax and drink in another room. Garrigan's medical colleague, Dr. Junju (David Yellow), takes advantage of the opportunity to rescue him, at the same time urging him to tell the world the truth about Amin's brutal regime, wryly asserting that as Garrigan is a white man, the world nations will believe him and investigate Amin's rule. Junju gives Garrigan his own jacket and wipes the blood from his face, enabling him to mingle unnoticed with the crowd of freed hostages and board the plane that will carry them out of Uganda. When the torturers return and discover Garrigan's absence, Junju is summarily executed by one of them. The plane departs with Garrigan on board; Amin is informed too late to prevent it. The film closes by showing actual footage of the real Idi Amin, whilst a caption reveals that over 300,000 Ugandan citizens were killed under Amin's dictatorship.