Monday, April 30, 2007

DVD Roundup: The Last King of Scotland

The consensus view of this one is: Forest Whitaker is awesome, the rest of the movie is mediocre. I disagree. Forest Whitaker is awesome, and the rest of the movie is infuriating, awful horseshit. The propensity of films about Africa to end up starring white people is a long-time annoyance to me, and this movie is the absolute most egregious case I've ever seen. The reign of Idi Amin is just not compelling on its own merits, it only gains relevance if it is observed by a white protagonist whose character arc is the most important thing happening on the screen at any given moment. It's bad enough that the main character is a white hanger-on, and that the tragedy of Amin's rule is considered less momentous than this white dude's angst, but the white dude in question is a callow dickhead, who never even evolves much. And to top it off, when the white guy is in danger of being killed at the end, a noble, selfless, and utterly one dimensional black character steps forward to trade his life for the white guys' life. "Why are you doing this?" asks the white guy. "I don't know" is all that the black martyr can manage. The real answer is: because the script demands that this asshole live, because his pain is the only pain that matters and his half-assed 'journey' is the only character development that matters.

Score: 5.0

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