The Last King of Scotland

I found the first third of this movie very distracting. Gillian Anderson (!) plays a British woman, her accent is tangy and spot-on, and she looks TERRIFIC. So it’s difficult to pay attention to the set-up when every moment she’s on screen I’m saying to myself, “Holy Cow! Is that Gillian Anderson?” Accolades for this movie are warranted. It’s dramatic, intense, and Forest Whitaker embodies his charming/psychopathic dictator well. The lead, James McAvoy, is strong. But it’s one of those movies that ends with a scroll about what happened to the characters after the movie ends, and it made me wonder about the historical accuracy. Sorry to say, though, that to me this movie was mostly about Gillian. Superficial, I know, but there you have it.