The film as a whole is taking its share of minor dings, but a measure of Oscar buzz is already building for Forest Whitaker’s turn in The Last King of Scotland, an adaptation of Giles Foden’s bestselling novel which juxtaposes the story of a composited character, a self-centered young Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), who ventures to Uganda in
the 1970s just as military dictator Idi Amin (Whitaker) seizes control of the country. Directed, in his feature debut, by documentary filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, One Day in September) from a screenplay adaptation by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, the film scores strongest when Whitaker is front and center, but as Macdonald mentions, he initially wasn’t sure that the erstwhile “gentle giant” could pull it off. Well, he does. For the full feature interview, from FilmStew, click here.
