First, the film is technically excellent. Macdonald moves from documentary (One Day in September, 1999) to docu-drama (Touching the Void, 2003) to historical fiction quite easily, employing a healthy measure of hand-held camera and grainy film stock to make the viewer feel like an observer of fact rather than a passive moviewatcher. The young Scottish doctor and erstwhile "hero" Nicholas Garrigan is well played by James McAvoy who never quite makes us comfortable with his character's choices . . . but that is the point. Perhaps the most well-deserved Oscar in recent memory was earned by Forest Whitaker for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Every scene in which Whitaker appears is worth watching - again and again - and around Kampala, it has become clear to me just how masterful a performance Whitaker has given: I can't tell that Whitaker's Ugandan accent is not genuine, and if you ask any local, he will tell you that Whitaker scared him and he believed that Amin had returned from the dead. The film isn't always as engaging as it could be and the script seems a bit disjointed as it edits and condenses years of history interwoven with Garrigan's fictional character, but it is worth watching--if not for the questions it poses about the African condition--because of Whitaker. Whitaker is Idi Amin.

The plot is adapted from Giles Foden's award-winning novel of the same name, and follows the rise of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin from his 1971 coup through to the 1976 Entebbe hijacking. Garrigan shows up in Uganda by chance to have a last bit of fun after earning his medical degree and to help the poor a little on the side. Through an unlikely series of events, he becomes the personal doctor to new dictator Amin and earns the strongman's trust as his closest advisor. The film asks questions about the seduction of power, selfishness, complicity, and responsibility. Rarely are the answers provided. And the conflicted and usually unsympathetic Garrigan shows how easily we are all persuaded to turn a blind or choose not to know what is unfolding around us when we are in a position to benefit (or, at the least, to continue in comfort without inconvenience).

Beyond these themes, my African experiences color (or is it colour?) my interpretation of this work. The film only shows glimpses of the horror Amin poured out on Uganda - one of the chief weaknesses of the movie in my opinion - but I am here and can see what Amin's (and his successors') injustice have done to this land. Sudan still suffers from the wars he began. Tanzania fought a war against Amin and Uganda. The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is still destabilized across the Ugandan border. We all know about Uganda's southern neighbor Rwanda. Amin had a hand (however big or small) in creating all of this. And yet there are still supporters of Amin and his policies in Uganda today. He built roads like no President before or since. The same is true of clinics, schools, and social programs. "Amin was a great man who did great things for Uganda. Too bad about the bad things, though. We could use another man like him here," is a direct quote from a Ugandan I talked to yesterday. "Amin was the Devil" is another person's view from yesterday.

Africa is like that. There isn't much black and white, but there is more grey than one can stomach. Amin did do great things for Uganda. And he butchered thousands in cold blood. The President before him was a liberation hero and one of Africa's most corrupt politicians. The current President earns praise for his faith and the development and stability he has brought to southern Uganda while he benefits from the instability and sociopathic war waged in the north for the past twenty years. Look beyond Uganda and you will find that the Darfur conflict in Sudan is not a war between good and evil, as it most commonly and most easily cas,t but between evil and more evil. And so it goes...

Africa is not simple. Understanding Africa is not simple. And portraying a murderous African dictator in a pseudo-historical film is not simple. In The Last King of Scotland, it is ironically the Scottish doctor Garrigan who most accurately depicts the greyness of the African experience. And for that, it is a worthy attempt.

Steven Nicholson lives in Cape Town, which is African by geographical designation only, but he occasionally travels to Africa and writes movie reviews on rainy days near the Equator. He blogs at http://twoandtwomakesfive.blogs.com.