The Last King of Scotland: Sifting Through The Pretentious Turd Piles
by Terri Kauffman
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From time to time, Terri will be providing reviews of movies she has yet to see. But fear not Young Stallion, there is no witchcraft here, only logical evidence based on advertisements, promotional materials, the track records of those involved, female intuition, and the like. This month, Terri gives us a rare recommendation.
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I haven’t yet seen The Last King of Scotland, but I will and you should see it too. Except, however, if your favorite actor is Jean-Claude Van Damme or your favorite director is Michael Bay, just stay home this weekend and rent Armageddon and Universal Soldier. If you happen to be a fan of the singing cartoon, you can always hit the theaters and check out Happy Feet, where emperor penguins find their mates through song. And if you have any interest in seeing Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, you should probably just rent the original and wait until December, alone in your apartment without having contact with anyone else, so you don’t bring down the national IQ average. But if you’re a fan of good movies, then get your butt off the couch and go see The Last King of Scotland.
I understand the concerns associated with risking your $15 on a movie about an African dictator from the 70’s, and I admit that historical dramas can turn out to be mind-numbingly dull. After all, you might have been recently tricked into seeing The Pianist, after being made to feel like a meathead American if you weren’t compelled to watch a powerful tragedy about a historical figure from another continent. So you agreed to see it, but then couldn’t admit that you hated it because that would only prove that you are a typical American oaf who prefers Adam Sandler punching Bob Barker in the nose to Holocaust victims playing the piano. But, c’mon, everyone knows that movie was dull.
The easiest way to spot a pretentious pile of shit is by its length. Sorry boys, size does make a difference sometimes. There’s a general rule among Hollywood readers that any script submission over 120 pages goes straight into the rejection bin. That may seem harsh, but each script page is approximately equal to one minute on screen, and any writer who can’t tell their story in two hours isn’t worth reading. In this case, I think the Hollywood money machine got it right. Here are the lengths on some overly indulgent, pretentious historical dramas from the last few decades:
The Pianist: 150 minutes
Amistad: 152 minutes
The English Patient: 160 minutes
A Passage to India: 163 minutes
Munich: 164 minutes
Saving Private Ryan: 170 minutes
Gandhi: 188 minutes
Lawrence of Arabia: 216 minutes
Of course, there are exceptions. The Godfather, for instance, was lengthy but also engaging for every one of its 175 minutes. Citizen Kane, on the other hand, was 119 minutes but seemed to drag on forever. The Last King of Scotland comes in just a minute over two hours, but I guarantee if Spielberg directed this there would be another thirty minutes of extraneous footage. You may think it’s unfair how I’ve targeted Spielberg, putting three of his films on my “pretentious turd” list, but that’s my next tip. I call it the Oscar Bid Factor, and there’s no better example than Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg made a name for himself with some of the most entertaining films of all time: Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Indiana Jones, etc. But then he started wanting recognition beyond his giant paychecks, so he made Schindler’s List, which grew like a fungus into Amistad and Saving Private Ryan. He eventually tried to go back to the mainstream movies that made him famous, but instead he just pooped out The Terminal and War of the Worlds. So, in general, be wary of actors or directors who are trying to win that Oscar they believe they already deserve.
Kevin Macdonald, the director of The Last King of Scotland, definitely does not have the stink of the Oscar on him. After all, he’s a relatively unknown documentary director from Scotland and was probably ecstatic just to have this film get made. He may not have the same track record as Spielberg, but when attempting to predict the difference between a well-crafted drama and a self-indulgent snooze fest, that’s a good sign.
Forest Whitaker, while not as unheard of as Kevin Macdonald, is probably more unknown than you think. If you don’t believe me, name five movies he’s been in. Or, just one major studio picture where he was the lead. I know his name, but I could only remember Panic Room off the top of my head. I did see The Crying Game, Blown Away and Phenomenon, but I completely forgot he was even in them. I do remember him from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but that was a lifetime ago and, though the movie is a timeless classic, it’s not his timeless classic. So it’s safe to assume that Whitaker, like Madonald, was also happy just to be starring in a good film, regardless of Oscar potential.
The last step in determining whether or not a historical drama is going to be a bore is how the subject of the film is depicted in the trailer. If an ad for a politician suggests that voting for his or her proposition will keep Namibian babies from getting kicked in the head, I suggest you vote the opposite. The ad is designed to get you to believe in something by manipulating your feelings, not by presenting the facts. The same concept applies to “message films,” which are designed to teach you something by manipulating your base emotions and not entertaining you with an engaging narrative about interesting, multifaceted characters.
“Charming. Magnetic. Murderous.” The tagline for The Last King of Scotland suggests that this film won’t be teaching you any lessons about why it’s bad to be a dictator, but rather it will delve into the unsettling truth of a leader descending into madness. If Spielberg had directed this film, the tagline probably would have read “Freedom is not given. It is our right at birth. But there are some moments when it must be taken.” Or maybe “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” That’s right, not “the entire world”. “The world entire.” Either way, I don’t trust the math.
From the clips I’ve seen, Whitaker appears to be spot-on as the egomaniacal homicidal dictator Idi Amin. I don’t know what a Ugandan accent actually sounds like, but Whitaker sounds fine to me. More importantly, when I watch the trailer I don’t see a respectable C-list actor making his bid for an Academy Award, I see egomaniacal homicidal dictator Idi Amin. Except, of course, for that weird droopy-eye thing that Forest Whitaker has, which I’m assuming Amin lacked. But the Americans With Disabilities Act forbids me from holding him responsible for this obvious deformity, so I’ll let that one slide.
I don’t see a lot of movies, and I see even fewer in the theater, but that’s because movies are getting worse. Most movies coming out these days fall into one of two categories: flashy eye candy that’s poorly written but stars Tom Cruise, or self-indulgent turd piles made by pretentious, award-seeking directors. I believe The Last King of Scotland will turn out to be a rare exception, and I recommend that you pony up the $15 and make a night of it. You’ll impress all of your friends by being ahead of the game once awards season comes around and everyone starts wondering who Forest Whitaker is and what the hell “The Last King of Scotland” means. It’ll be worth it.
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People say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Terri Kauffman thinks those people are wrong. Her favorite pastime is judging things immediately, whether they're books, movies, or people. You've been warned.
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