The Last King of Scotland review

 Number 557 on the top 1000 films of all time is the historical drama 'The Last King of Scotland.'

Nicholas Garrigan (James Mcavoy) is a young Scottish doctor. Looking to make a difference, he travels to Uganda to work in a missionary clinic ran by David Merrit (Adam Katz) and his wife Sarah (Gillian Anderson.) But after a chance encounter, he becomes the personal physician of the Ugandan despot Idi Amin (Forrest Whitaker.)

In terms of dictators, Idi Amin is up there among the rest. He expelled all South Asians from his country, wiped out all political opposition and was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Despite all this, Forrest Whitaker showed a remarkably human side of the tyrant. Without never romanticising his actions, Whitaker made Idi Amin into a watchable character. He had a fascinating arc as we saw him spiral into paranoia and meglomania while remaining incredibly charismatic.

James Mcavoy was equally good as the naive, starry-eyed doctor initially a disciple of Amin, until his tyrannical actions become too much for Garrigan to ignore. The character of Nicholas Garrigan was a nice dismantling of the white saviour archetype. Rather than your average white colonist aiming to pacify, sedate and civilise the savage negro, Garrigan is a destructive force, albert unintentionally. Instead of saving the black characters, he gets many of them killed. *Spoilers*

One of these characters is Amin's third wife Kay (Kerry Washington) whom Nicholas impregnates while the pair are having a secret tryst. He is criticised for being a white man who couldn't resist the mystical trophy of a black woman.

The Last King of Scotland was penned by Peter Morgan who wrote other biopics like the Queen and the Crown. He wrote well knowing the most important sections to focus on. There isn't any spare fat anywhere in this film. I also want to give dues to Gillian Anderson. She was great in the supporting role of Sarah Merrit. Having seen countless dictators come and go, she fails to share Nicholas' wide-eyed optimism for Idi Amin's regime.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Last King of the Scotland. It was a great look into the life of Uganda's ruthless dictator. 

It review (1990 mini-series)

Review for It

SPOILER ALERT

We’ve come to another adaptation of Stephen King’s work.  As I’ve read ‘It’ and I've heard that the adaptation is supposed to be great, I thought I would it a go.

‘It’ is set in mostly Derry, Maine and in two different timelines, one in 1957 and the other in 1984.  The 1957 timeline follows the protagonists’ narrative as children.  There are seven protagonists: Bill Denborough (Richard Thomas,) the stuttering leader of the group, the fat but good-hearted Ben Hanscom (John Ritter,) the asthmatic Eddie Kasbarak (Dennis Christopher), the wisecracking smartarse Richie Tozier (Harry Anderson,) the sceptical and rational Stan Uris (Richard Masur), the only girl in the group Beverly Marsh (Annette O'Toole) and the only black member of the group Mike Hanlon (Tim Reid).  

These seven children do battle with the child-eating, inter-dimensional monster known as Pennywise the Clown or It (Tim Curry).  When they fail to kill Pennywise in 1957, they return in 1984 to do battle once again.  One prominent subplot also sees them facing off any times with the neighbourhood bully Henry Bowers.  Henry serves as a human and therefore more relatable, but no less psychotic antagonist.

‘It’ was released as a two-part TV movie, each part being 90 mins long.  Seeing as the book is over 1000 pages long, I would argue that this is a reasonable length for a film, which they achieved by cutting out some unnecessary secondary characters and some lengthy character development.  I’m glad they did this, as I thought the book had far too much backstory for its characters and I got very bored reading through parts of it.  The film also worked well as a horror.  It did well in, rather than showing the murders themselves, it showed the effects on those left behind.  Pennywise has the powers to shapeshift into a character’s biggest fear or make them see what they fear most.     The film depicted these different images very well, which all added to the scariness of it.  I also quite liked the child cast, although it was weird seeing Seth Green, who played the young Richie Tozier, as a sixteen year old.

However, the film missed out a couple of important scenes that featured in the book.  The first focuses on Beverly in the 1984 timeline.  In this timeline, she is married to the abusive and possessive Tom Hagen.  When she tells Tom, she wants to return to Maine, they get into a bloody and physical fight with Beverly being the victor.  In the film, this is mostly omitted, which I didn’t like, as in the book we see Beverly’s inner strength and power as a character, which isn’t conveyed in the same way within the film.  

The second scene focuses on Mike Hanlon’s past in 1957.  Within this scene, Mike’s father tells him how he and some of his friends created a club that was originally just for black people, but soon expanded to encompass all races, but the club was burnt down by white supremacists.  I felt that this really highlighted the racial prejudice that black people experienced at the time and by omitting this scene, I felt that the film glossed over this issue.  

Tim Curry was also good as Pennywise the Clown. Sure, you could argue he was a little over-the-top, but it worked. There's a reason why Pennywise is considered one of the scariest film villains ever.

And the less said about Bill Denborough's ponytail, the better. 

Overall, this was an enjoyable film.  It was certainly very creepy and horrific and for the most part, it was a faithful adaption of the book it was based on.  However, I felt that the filmmakers could have been a little wiser in the scenes that they omitted. That notwithstanding this film brought us one of the scariest villains of the 1990's.