The Last King Of Scotland vs Training Day

I find an easy way for me to gauge star power is by noticing how much I think about an actor when he’s not on screen. For example, in Training Day, Ethan Hawke plays the main character. The plot revolves around him, he’s got the only notable arc of development, and all the other characters exist to either serve his story, or to create situations for him to react to, thrive under, or suffer from. Ask anyone, though, including the Academy, and they’ll tell you it’s Denzel Washington’s movie. And they’ll be right, in a way, because even though Ethan Hawke gives a fine, grown-up performance in Training Day, he need only step into a frame containing Denzel Washington to be rendered all but invisible.

Don’t worry, Ethan, it happens to the best of them. Surprisingly, it does not happen so much to James McAvoy in The Last King of Scotland. McAvoy is hardly mentioned in articles and reviews for the film, which favor his costar, Forest Whitaker, who is likely to win this year’s Best Actor at the Oscars. Whitaker, if you were wondering, has less screen time than McAvoy, and it’s really McAvoy’s character who lives in and propels the main story of Last King of Scotland. Once the movie is over, however, it might take some effort to convince you that Whitaker is not indeed in every single frame of the movie.

Whitaker stars as Idi Amin, the brutal Ugandan leader, during his reign in the early 1970s. Amin was essentially a monster, but he talked a good game, and presented an up-with-Uganda public persona that kept in him power. Whitaker takes to the role with ferocity; to call his performance passionate or aggressive would give little clue to just how larger-than-life his Amin is. This man is the focus in any room. When Whitaker is on-screen, he has your complete attention. He never mugs or dips into any camp elements that so many actors find when playing a villain. James McAvoy plays what I’m assuming is a fictional or composite role: Amin’s Scottish personal doctor, Nicholas.

Nicholas has just graduated from medical school, and feeling underwhelmed by his posh surroundings and future in family medicine, picks Uganda at random as a place for adventure, volunteerism, and sight-seeing. He gets all of this and more when he splints Amin’s hand on the scene of a car wreck. Amin is impressed with Nicholas’ boldness, and immediately hosts him at his huge estate. Soon, Nicholas is living it up, dressing to the nines, giving political advice, and starting a dangerous flirtation with one of Amin’s wives (Kerry Washington, who gives a strong, nuanced performance. And is hot.)  

It’s not long before Nicholas is shown Amin’s true sadistic nature, but by then he’s a member of the inner circle. If the movie is any indication, getting out of that inner circle is less difficult than just staging your own coup and overthrowing the government. It’s a frightening, interesting, sometimes difficult-to-watch ride as Nicholas tries to regain his identity and make it home safely. McAvoy is well-cast, and gives a performance that I hope is not overlooked. His role has little of the thunder that accompanies Whitaker in every scene, but it’s the center of the movie, and vibrantly necessary, which isn’t exactly what I would say about anyone’s role in Training Day.

Listen, I’m a huge Denzel Washington fan. But his role in Training Day, while showing a new, villainous side, is kind of just the same noise from scene to scene. Washington’s character, Alonzo, seems charismatic at first, but it’s only because Washington himself is so charismatic. Closer inspection shows that the guy’s mainly just a bully and an asshole. Hawke’s character, Jake, has more integrity, but doesn’t get the nerve to use it until it’s almost too late. Alonzo is a snake, and fun to watch, and well-played by Washington. But in the span of the movie, we only see him go from mean to meaner to almost cartoonishly vile. That’s not much of a story arc, especially if there’s an Oscar on the other end. I’d never begrudge Washington a trophy, but man would I have gotten more pleasure out of seeing it won for Courage Under Fire, He Got Game, The Hurricane, Devil in a Blue Dress, Philadelphia, Malcolm X…

The Last King of Scotland, directed by Kevin MacDonald, is simply a better movie, and not just in some snobby not-for-the-masses way. Much of The Last King of Scotland is filmed with handheld cameras; at times, there are clever little flinches in scenes, pulling toward or away from Whitaker, much as you would had you been in the room. Everything is bathed in a warm, peaceful glow, which provides a nice jolt every time we’re faced with an act of horrifying violence. MacDonald chooses his moments carefully. The Last King of Scotland is violent, but many of the shocks are filmed so that we think we’re seeing more than we are. MacDonald, unlike, say, Training Day’s director, Antoine Fuqua, trusts us to fill in some of the blanks. Even better, he’s working with a script that affords his actors the same luxury.

The Last King of Scotland: A
Training Day: C