By Andrew SheivachmanPLAY Writer

Insane dictators aren’t so bad. He may test nuclear weapons or carry out executions, but he also probably knows how to throw crazy parties.

Kevin Macdonald’s film The Last King of Scotland portrays Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin as a charming, fun-loving mass murderer. A superb Forest Whitaker plays Amin with a captivating affability, offering one of the most impressive and twisted performances in years.

The wild-eyed Whitaker is terrifying as he vacillates from playful to paranoid in an instant. When he delivers a speech in front of a crowd or orates at a gala, he gestures and shouts with perverse rage. It’s easy to understand how Amin wooed Uganda with his magnetism; we are similarly attracted to the same traits in Whitaker.

We meet Amin through a Scottish doctor, Thomas Garrigan (James McAvoy), who is seduced by the leader’s charm. Amin is obsessed with Scotland, and the two swap clothing upon their first meeting. Na’ve and hedonistic, Garrigan is enraptured by Amin’s opulent lifestyle and becomes his closest advisor.

The tone of the film slowly changes, however, as Garrigan becomes entrenched in Amin’s administration. By subtly shaking his camera and relying on close-ups, first-time director Macdonald does an impressive feat of altering his style to accord with Garrigan’s discovery of Amin’s genocidal tendencies.

Grotesquely mutilated bodies begin to turn up in the second half of the film. The scoring even switches from driving African dance music to dark orchestral arrangements. The film’s quick switch from decadence to atrocity is effective – while Garrigan was partying, people were dying, and this enormous breach of his Hippocratic Oath infuriates him.

It turns out the wild debauchery was only a mere distraction from the brutal policies of Amin’s government. But, hey, anything for a good time.

– Andrew Sheivachman