Customer Reviews

Amin: The Rise And Fall

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i thought this movie was very violent and grosume and i love this movie to death because of that. I thought the scene where amin puts two heads in the ice box was a classic and when he hacked up his wife. If you are the type of person who likes movies based on true leaders then this movie is th one to see.

"Amin: The Rise and Fall" is an obscure film from the 1980's about real life dictator Idi Amin. I had found a trailer for this film on YouTube, and having gotten interested in Idi Amin I decided to give it a try. I've read reviews that call it exploitational, although that isn't entirely true. (sex and violence, thankfully, do not carry the movie) However, the movie still has some faults that keep it short from being what could've been the best film made about the Ugandan dictator.

If you've done any research on Idi Amin, then seeing this film will be like seeing your research splashed on screen. Pretty much any thing major Idi Amin did is shown on this film. You see his early promises of democratic reform, only to gain tighter control of the government. You see men from the State Research Bureau stuff political prisoners into car trunks, later to be tortured, executed, and dumped into the Nile to be fed to crocodiles. You see Asians being kicked out of Uganda, and their businesses being handed out to Amin's political allies. You see Amin isolating himself from any world power, be they America, the UK, or Russia. You see the Entebbe hostage crisis and the Israeli commando raid. Finally, the film ends with Amin's disastrous war with Tanzania - so all in all, it really does show his "rise and fall." Heck, the film even shows some minor elements of his regime: the mock attack on Johannesburg, the supposed body parts in the fridge and Amin's alleged cannibalism. (many people have refuted this, even though it is well documented by former ministers and associates that Amin admitted to such practices) Amin is even advised by Bob Astles, the Briton who was the very very very very loose basis for the main character in "The Last King of Scotland." Speaking of which, I think because the film includes so much of Amin's regime and its actions in the story this movie succeeds where "Last King" failed - namely, showing what Amin's rule was like, and just how terrible it really was. (don't get me wrong, I liked "Last King," but so much focus was on the main character and not Idi Amin that his regime takes a back seat to a tale of naive youth)

The problem with the movie is delivery is not all that great. For one, you basically watch all these events happen one after the other. Amin does something bad, then he does something else bad, then he ticks off a foreign diplomat, rinse and repeat. You know those docudramas you had to watch in elementary school, where actors would play a historical moment followed by a narrator filling in the details? This movie feels a lot like that. Now, I wasn't necessarily bored during the film, but if you're expecting heavy character driven plot such as "Schindler's List," then I would advise you look elsewhere.

The other problem is the film comes across as a bit goofy. Sure, Amin was a strange political figure with a lot of eccentricities, but he was also a complicated madman. Some of the ways the film portrays Amin - such as sitting by a pool side being massaged by a white girl in a bikini, or driving around race cars and picking up chicks, or wearing a tight uniform that turns him into a black Goerring - come across as very cartoonish. Much of the dialog is also very silly, such as the moment when the American ambassador mouths off to Amin and the dictator replies, "I kicked the Asians out! Soon I'll do the same to you!" Uh...how many Americans were in Uganda again?

The final problem is a lot of the acting is very amateurish. Thomas Baptiste, playing Dr. Michael Oloya, comes across as the best one. The others are moderately good, although many of them sound like they're reading from a cue card held off screen. The man who plays Idi Amin, Joseph Olita, unfortunately cannot play him convincingly. While Forest Whitaker didn't look like Idi Amin, he could mimic the man's mannerisms and voice very well. Joseph Olita looks like Idi Amin, but doesn't sound or act at all like him. He speaks with a strange speech impediment, as if his tongue is being pressed against the roof of his mouth. In fact, when he was eating the flesh of the chief judge I half expected him to look at the camera and say, "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good!"

The film is not a bad one, but it falls short of being a good one. I was happy to see it wasn't as exploitational as people were making it out to be, and I was even more happy to see so much of Amin's regime and strange personality covered. It's a pity that it could not have been helped with a cleaned up script and a better cast. Still, if you're interested in Idi Amin you'll definitely want to check it out. It's even more interesting watching this after "The Last King of Scotland" just to see how the two films cover the same subject.

Give the Oscar to Joseph Olita!

Credit should be given where it is due. Justice should be served where it is wanting: Joseph Olita deserved to win the Oscar 16 years ago for his portrayal of former Ugandan despot Idi Amin Dada in the classic epic The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin. To date, the movie remains the most watched movie in Kenyan history, surpassing even The Passion of the Christ.

A huge majority of visitors and customers on this site will most probably not have watched the 16 year-old epic, since they must have been like 2 or 3 years old when the classic was released, but this does not mean they should hear about it. Produced by the late Sharad Patel (who was also a Kenyan citizen), The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin was a movie about the true story of the Ugandan military dictator. Legend has it that Joseph Olita played Idi Amin so well that Idi Amin himself swore (he had then been disposed and was in exile in Saudi Arabia) that if they ever crossed paths, he would kill him with his bare hands. Of course Idi Amin is long since dead and Joseph Olita's international acting career failed to take him to Hollywood.

So good was Olita at playing Amin that in preparation for his great performance, Whitaker surely must have benefited from a study of The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin. In fact, we in Africa aren't really surprised that the professional critics have not noted, reminded, or even compared Olita's previous very stunning portrayal of Amin. Most objective critics would admit that if you compared Olita's and Whitaker's portrayal of Amin, the former stands heads and shoulders above.

But such is the tragic case of Africa; ignored by the west and the world in general, despite its great contribution to the world of entertainment. And when the world and Hollywood finally directs some attention towards this glorious continent, the characters playing leading roles in stories about the continent, are not African!

This elusive classic gem of blaxploitation is just about as magnificent as the genre ever gets. It ranks alongside if not higher than such massive epics like Shaft with its thunderous, rip roaring performance by Joseph Olita in the title role. The script writers have worked miracles, turning what could have ended up as a one dimensional political docu-thriller to one way beyond the hysterical realms of farce. The movie lurches along at breakneck speed beginning with a short blurb about Uganda, mostly unintelligible, followed by the joyous scenes surrounding Amin's military takeover from Milton Obote, civilian if horribly corrupt ruler of the ravaged nation.

Amin as brilliantly played by Olita as a slavering, demented, sex maniac with the intellect of a drooling three year old. It is a truly great performance and lights up the whole film with its energy and dynamism. Olita carries the film off on his mighty shoulders obviously relishing and "living" his role to the hilt. Perhaps most shocking of all is that the dynamics on screen are more or less strictly in line with the various biographies written on Amin and Uganda through the turbulent 70's. Few liberties seem to have been taken by the film makers and perhaps it is just the films sensationalist manner that suggests that the material is somewhat removed from reality.

Dora Bloch and Entebbe are facts as are Amin's expulsions of citizens of Asian origin. He likened himself to Hitler and idolized him promising a statue "in the middle of Kampala". Amin also changed allies with every new season, courting the British and Israeli's and then spouting some marxist rubbish to please the Soviets. Later he takes to Islam and when he finds his circle of friends rapidly diminishing and is left with a mottley bunch of eager beaver Libyans. "Allah save me" mutters Amin when an assassination attempt just misses. Earlier he charms some departing Russians at the airport with some of the worst played accordian in history!!

His pandering to the Arabs was timely as he has been granted a life of comfort in Saudi Arabia, avoiding any retribution for the atrocities he committed. This is all documented in accounts by among others, Dennis Hills, an Amin confidante for a some time as well as a British based journalist.
Overwhelmingly though, the film works as a fabulous slice of outlandish black comedy, pardon the pun. Olita is dynamite and the film provides guffaws by the cartload, and refreshes those parts most movies cant even hope to achieve!

If that wasn't enough, One ends up cheering for the ogrous Amin by the movie's conclusion, for his perseversence if nothing else, and his sexual conquests of course. What a joy it was to be able to purchase this classic gem - one that we have been after for many a year without success. We are now proud to add this epic blaxploitation epic to our distinctly manic collection of films for all to enjoy.