The Last King of Scottland

The movie I watched was The Last king of Scottland. This movie shows the interactions between the President of Uganda and a Scottish phisician in the 1970's, The two came in contact with one another in a way that might be described as fait. The movie begins with Nicholas Garrigan fresh out of medical school, and from what I can tell trapped in his own life. Nicholas spins a globe and puts his finger out in search of his future and it so happens to land on Uganda. He travels to Uganda and begins helping a few other doctors in a small village. While there he was called to help the Ugandan president who was injured in a car accident. When Nicholas arrived at the scene he aided the President with his injury, which proved to be minor, and left an impression that almost cost him his life. After meeting with Nicholas, President Amin became attached in a way that trulely showed his mental instability. Nicholas became involved with matters far beyond his feild of work, matters concerning the state. Nicholas aslo became involved with President Amin's personal life along with that he had a affair with Amin's third and most recent wife Kay. Kay becomes pregnant with Nicholas's child and goes to him in search of someway to get an abortion, The decison is made that Nicholas will preform the surgery. On his way to Kay with the equitment to do the procedure he is interupted and is delayed in getting to Kay this ultimatly leads to Kay's death. Nicholas tries to take revenge against Amin by ways of his profession. His plan his stopped in its tracks, and he escaped only because another doctor in the local hospital the both worked at died saving him. This Doctor, Dr. Junju, only did this because he belived that the world would listen to Nicholas and he could ultimatly save Uganda from this oppresive force.

This film gave me a very different perspective on what we in America think of ourselves helping people around the world, especially in Africa. I would say most Americans would still think of Africans or any other people living in third world countries as a lesser group of people. The poem the White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling, still relates to us today in the sence that if an American would travel to Africa they would probably take with them a mindset of I'm going to help these people behave more like me. And this film adresses that in saying, "This is not a game" speaking about Africa in general is not the white man's toy. It is Ironic that this film starts with a white man sitting in a beautiful home straight out of medical school bored out of mind, this man playfully spins a globe to decide his life, later this same man is told by President Amin,"This is not a game".

I enjoyed this film it mixed history with modern day issuses in a very easy to follow, hollywood cinimatic flow of events Overall I would recomend this film to anyone about 15 and older.