We rented this film over the weekend.

Despite having read the book a couple of years ago, I had my reservations about whether it would make a good film, being a little concerned that ‘worthy’ films don’t always make for good entertainment.

I now realise I was being a fool. The film is brilliant and Forrest Whittaker thoroughly deserves every one of the many awards he won for his portrayal of Idi Amin. He really did get across how the man was a monster, wildly unpredictable, and unbalanced but could also be charming when he wanted to be.

The result was that Idi Amin in this film was much more three-dimensional and complex than he is often made out to be. I am sure the same is true of many of history’s tyrants and despots.

The story is a strange mixture of fact and fiction, with many real events included even though the central character is an invention, albeit one loosely based on Bob Astles. Some of the events like the expulsion of the Asians from Uganda and the Entebbe hostages I was vaguely aware of at the time but throughout most of Amin’s time in power my only impression of him was from a book of Private Eye’s Idi Amin’s Diaries (written by Alan Coren?) which I had read, so even though the film is fictional I think it has given me more of an idea of what he might have been like.

It is not often I agree so strongly with the Academy Award judges, but I reckon they got it spot on this time round in the Best Actor category.

An exchange near the end of the film sums it all up nicely:

Amin: I have been like a father to you

Dr. Garrigan: No. You’re a child. Thats what makes you so fucking scary!

Something like that anyway.