The Last King Of Scotland: Widescreen Edition (Screener Version) DVD Review By Mark A. Rivera

Buy This DVD Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!

Title: The Last King Of Scotland: Widescreen Edition (Screener Version)

Region: One

Genre: Historical Drama Thriller

Stars: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Simon McBurney, and David Oyelowo

Writers: Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan

Based On The Novel By Giles Folden

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Feature length: 121 minutes

Extras: Commentary by Director Kevin Macdonald, Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Kevin Macdonald, Documentary: Capturing Idi Amin, Forest Whitaker Featurette, Fox Movie Channel Presents: Casting Session- The Last King of Scotland, Theatrical Trailer

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Spanish Dolby Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 28

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2006/DVD Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Fox Searchlight Films

Home Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Forest Whitaker earned an Oscar® for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the theatrical feature film adaptation of Giles Folden’s novel The Last King Of Scotland. This is Amin's rise and the subsequent descent into paranoia as seen through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a young Scotsman who becomes the volatile leader's personal physician, due in part to Amin's unexpected passion for Scottish culture -- Amin even proclaims himself "The Last King of Scotland." Seduced by Amin's charisma and blinded by decadence, Garrigan's dream life becomes a waking nightmare of betrayal and madness from which there is no escape. Inspired by real people and events, the framework of the relationship between Amin and the character of Garrigan is fictional. The film was directed by documentary filmmaker Kevin Macdonald and shot on location in Uganda using much of the actual locations where Amin lived, his personal limo, and so forth. To bring further realism to the story, he used scenes from Director Barbet Schroeder’s 1976 documentary General Idi Amin Dadda: Self Portrait, which is available on DVD separately as a part of The Criterion Collection. There have been other characterizations of Amin that include Yaphet Koto’s role as Idi Amin in the 1977 TV movie Raid On Entebbe as well as the 1981 exploitation feature film Amin: The Rise And Fall that featured Joseph Olita in an over-the-top performance that I am surprised has never been released to DVD especially after the Oscar® win for Whitaker that will bring The Last King Of Scotland and other films related to the Ugandan despot to a larger audience. Olita reprised his role as Amin in the 1992 feature film Mississippi Masala, which starred Denzel Washington as well as Charles S. Dutton. However the big difference between Whitaker’s portrayal and his predecessors’ is that one gets the sense of possible reasons for Amin’s descent into homicidal madness that include his upbringing and abuse within the British army and his subsequent installation into power by the British because of the Cold War fears of the previous ruler Milton Obete’s possible embrace of communism and the western desire to keep the Soviets out of Africa. Amin later turned to Libya and the Soviet Union himself for military and economic support after ousting Israeli military advisors and terminating diplomatic relations with Great Britain.

James McAvoy gives an underrated performance partially because I suspect his character in many ways is unlikable, selfish, irresponsible, and to certain extent not even particularly remorseful other than for his fictional relationship with one of Amin’s wives, which brings an end to his relationship with Amin. Other standout performances come from American Actress Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, and David Oyelowo. Gillian Anderson also gives a good performance in the film though her role is short. It is a shame she has not appeared in many films outside of her career-making role on the popular Fox television series The X-Files. I thought she was very good in The House Of Mirth.

The disc used to write this DVD review is a screener disc and not the final product to be released by Twentieth Century Fox in April. I normally do not review screening discs because I have had too many troubles related to them in the past and they do not represent the final product as consumers will buy necessarily, but merely in many cases an approximation. Already I have found discrepancies between what has been listed on retail websites of the DVD features and what was on the disc sent for me to review. If final product should be made available for review at a later date, I will update this screener review accordingly. Based on what I saw on this disc, the picture and sound quality on this disc were exceptional, especially when upconverted to 1080i and given artificial Dolby Digital EX Surround Sound decoding. The picture quality is very striking, especially in many of the exterior segments. The Last King Of Scotland was presented in an anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio with English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Spanish Dolby Surround Sound as well as English Subtitles For The Deaf and Hearing Impaired coupled with French and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded as options. Director Kevin Macdonald gives a terrific screen specific audio commentary where he even addresses the cult of personality left behind by Amin’s fading shadow. He claims Whitaker was thankful to get this character he was channeling out of his system once the production was over and the Director even mentions having a dream that Amin was sitting at the foot of his bed on the night before production began.

Macdonald also provides optional audio commentary for seven (1.33:1) deleted scenes that can be viewed individually or as one reel (11:44). The BBC Scotland documentary Capturing Amin (29:03), which chronicles the making of the film, is presented in a (1.78:1) aspect ratio and the Fox Movie Channel special Casting Session: The Last King Of Scotland (8:36) is presented in a (1.33:1) aspect ratio along with a video interview with Whitaker about the role (5:59) and the film’s theatrical trailer (2:26).

The main menu is animated while the subsequent menus are all standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. The Last King Of Scotland: Widescreen Edition will debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at retailers on and offline from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Return To The Previous Page

Buy This DVD Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!