The Last King of Scotland (DVD)

The reasons for seeing a movie like The Last King of Scotland are pretty straightforward and simple.

1. It’s a really good movie.
2. Forest Whitaker is outstanding as Idi Amin.
3. It has some history interwoven into it, making it even more enjoyable.

The reasons for buying the DVD, if you’ve seen the movie already, are not so easy. The disc is not choco full of much; it’s not a great addition to what has to be called one of the best movies of the year. All of this leaves me conflicted. Do we give DVD dollars to a disc that’s either setting us up for a special edition or just plain “phoning it in”? I say yes, we should, but it’s a damn close call, and perhaps rental dollars are the most we should submit to.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. The Last King of Scotland has a commentary. Guess what else? Different language subtitles. Good stuff eh? Ooops, almost forgot, you can chapter select. Hey, quit yawning! I’m moving on to the special features; don’t get your boxers in a bunch over there.

The deleted scenes portion features about eight never before seen scenes. Overall, they don’t add a ton to the movie experience; some are just extended versions of scenes that already exist. The opening deleted scene is kind of cool because it shows Amin’s early boxing days (Well, Forest as Amin that is). A few of the scenes after that aren’t so much “deleted” as “not completed,” and the sound mixing is shoddy. A weird conversation poolside between Nicholas and Amin in the fifth deleted scene pulls the plot together a little better but it wasn’t a huge misfire to drop it from the film.

“Capturing Idi Amin” is easily the best of the features, clocking in at a full 28 minutes. It has a smidge of archival footage and a little bit behind the historical presence of the man. There’s a funny moment that occurs (basically out of nowhere) where they are beating a man during a shoot and the director yells “cut” and one guy keeps on whacking him until the director screams “cut” again, this time with a tone that says “Hey man, quit beating that guy with a stick!” Consider that a little Easter egg for ya because it’s completely ignored within the context of the feature.

“Fox Movie Channel Presents: Casting Session” and “Forest Whitaker’s Idi Amin” trod over much of the same ground, and they are only eight and six minutes a piece anyhow. One thing that’s consistently interesting is how balanced Forest wanted to play Amin. I don’t think he quite pulled it off, this is a terrifying dude, but I respect his intent. One other thing that comes out in the features is some blatant mistruths the movie went with for dramatic effect. This, in my estimation, was pure laziness. If you’ve invented a whole new character in a historical situation (Nicholas) then lying in addition to that is silly. Amin was a bad enough guy in real life; they didn’t need to spread some of the rumors about him that turned out to be false.

So then, we come to it. Should you buy this disc? Hmmm.. are you rich? If so, hell yeah, you should buy every Oscar nominee you can get your filthy manicured hands on. If you’re not then it’s a rental because the hour worth of extra content isn’t all that impressive. If they some day release a two disc version with a full scale Idi Amin biography in it, with archival footage, well then I’ll be the first in line with my debit card in hand.