The director is not to be confused with Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall, unfortunately. Maybe McDonald could’ve added some humor to the whole thing.
Not a laughing matter, the movie is an untrue story about a loser doctor (young scot James McAvoy) who moves to Uganda so that he won’t have to work at his dad’s practice. After unsuccessfully trying to seduce older doctor Gillian Anderson out in the country, James meets General Idi Amin Dada, new ruler of Uganda, aka a completely badass Forest Whitaker. James is offered a position as Idi Amin’s private physician, and accepts… gets to see how quirky and odd Amin can be, sometimes very likeable, sometimes killing lots of people in horrible ways. James falls for Amin’s third wife Kay (Kerry Washington of Fantastic Four) and has some sex with her before Amin has her killed. Our man barely barely escapes with his life, escaping on a plane when he’s supposed/about to be killed as well.
Story is pretty straightforward, told from James’s eyes with some drifting short-attention-span camera work. A pretty okay movie with a single towering performance, then, just as the Oscars would have you believe.