Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Last King of Scotland

"We are not a game, Nicholas."

I am sad we had to have a white male protag to follow around in order to tell a black guy's story. The Ugandan doctor who saves his ass would have made a much better protagonist.

Forest Whitaker is amazing in this movie. It's worth every blessed penny to see him completely nail this performance of a man living on the edge of madness.

Women characters were marginal to the men's stories, and end up in refrigerators 50% of the time (I should say, story: it's still the white guy's story, and he's a really, really awful character), and as said, apparently white audiences aren't expected to show interest in stories about Ugandans unless a white person's involved, but it was a powerful film nonetheless. I'd put off watching it for a long time because I knew it was going to be a downer - what I didn't expect was how incredibly intense it was. Again, watching Whitaker zoom back and forth was phenomenal.

Highly recommended.

3 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

David Moles said...

a really, really awful characterBut hot!

Djiril said...

I remember thinking about the whole thing being from a white character's point of view when I saw the movie. I think it said in the credits that it was based on a book that the main character wrote.

I've been meaning to ask you, (maybe I have, I forget), have you seen "Mongol?" I saw that a while back and it seemed like your type of movie. It has no white characters, and is very interesting in the way it portrays the main female character.

Kameron Hurley said...

I did see Mongol! I thought it was a fascinating way to tell that story. It was not at all what I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I loved the way the actual warring was the subplot, and the relationship with his wife was.. well, the actual plot. A complete reversal of what you usually see, and powerful because of that. I love what it did to old tropes, assumptions, and expectations.