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Reception

Whitaker received considerable critical acclaim for his performance as dictator Idi Amin in the film, winning the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs, in addition to awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and many other critics awards, for a total of at least 23 major awards, with at least one more nomination.

The film was received well in Uganda, where it premiered two days before Whitaker won the Best Actor award.[1]

The film received a 2007 BAFTA Award for Best British Film and the BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay, in addition to receiving nominations for Best Supporting Actor James McAvoy and Best Film.

Historical Accuracy

While Idi Amin and the events surrounding him in the movie are mostly factual, Garrigan is a fictional character; but his story is very loosely based on events in the life of English-born Bob Astles. Like the novel on which it is based, the film mixes fiction with real events in Ugandan history to give an impression of Amin and Uganda under his authoritarian rule. While the basic events of Amin's life are followed, the film often departs from actual history in the details of particular events.

In real life and in the book, Kay Amin was not made pregnant by Astles (or Garrigan in this case) but by her lover, Dr. Mbalu Mukasa. In real life Kay died during a botched abortion operation by Mukasa, who subsequently committed suicide. Kay's body was then mutilated in the manner shown in the film on Amin's orders.

In real life, Amin never had a son named Campbell.

The film condenses the time frame of real events. For example, Amin expelled the Indians and South Asians in 1972, and the airplane hijacking took place in 1976, but in the film they appear to take place closer in time.

Many of the Ugandan landmarks seen in the movie did not exist in the 1970s.