Forest was great; the film was not!

I thought it was both, great acting from FW and a great movie. Sure, it was historical fiction but there's plenty of books out there that dive into historical fiction as well. And one of my favorite films ever is Amadeus and it's based on a fictional account of Mozart.

I don't have any problems that for the most part this was a fictional take with actual events blended in. At the very least, this could have been loosely based on a real person, a man named Bob Astles. Astles was a British soldier that became one of Amin's advisers. Now, whether or not this is the case, I'm not totally sure, but this movie caught my attention early on and kept me intrigued throughout the entire film.

When I saw the run-time was a little over 2 hours, I had my doubts that it could keep my attention for that long but it sure did. And yeah, the doctor was a little to "happy go lucky" in my opinion but I think this was on purpose. They wanted to make him seem just a little naive and appear to be taken in my Amin's charm and it worked. It was quite the perfect match, naive doctor and the charming dictator that manipulates him.

But yeah, the violence was a little over the top, I do think Hollywood production companies try out do each other. It's like a contest to see who can come up with the most violent scene in a film. lol

The side plot between the doctor and Amin's wife seemed a little unrealistic too. I mean, if you're just now discovering how bad Amin is, why the hell would you sleep with his wife? lol

Beyond this, it was a combination of solid story-line and great acting from Whitaker. Although his eyes were a little distracting, I know he has ptosis which is something he can't help, but Amin didn't have this problem and it made FW look not so much like Amin at times.

Anyhow, none of this ruined the film, it's an 8.0 out of 10 from me.