History Film / TheLastKingOfScotland

* HannibalLecture: After Amin's men have pummeled Garrigan and are about to severely torture him, Amin [[JerkassHasAPoint (correctly to some extent)]] accuses him of being a white man who came to Africa as if it were all a game, to screw the local women and act like it was a giant vacation. Whatever Garrigan's personal faults might be, his retort to this is to finally state to Amin's face what none of his inner circle ever had the courage to point out, no matter how ridiculously obvious it increasingly became: "You are a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary".

** Subverted and/or deconstructed. Nicholas believes, at first, that he can solve Uganda's problems (well, at least some of them), but fails miserably. {{Lampshaded}} towards the end, when Amin admonishes Nicholas for trying to "play the 'white man and the natives' game".

* BittersweetEnding: Nicholas escapes Uganda with his life, but he has to live with the fact that innocent people died thanks to him.

* NonIndicativeTitle: You're in for a surprise if you think this movie is going to be a ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''-style epic about Scottish kings. In fact, Amin had no actual authority in Scotland in the first place, the self-given title just being part of his CultureFetish.

* NonIndicativeTitle: You're in for a surprise if you think this movie is going to be a ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''-style epic about Scottish kings.

* ColdBloodedTorture: Do ''not'' watch the last half hour or so of this movie if you've just eaten. Amin says the technique he used comes from a similar punishment in his childhood, with a tree, where every scream of the victim is evil leaving their body.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Sorry, Kay. We only see the aftermath, but it clearly wasn't a pleasant way to go]].

* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: After Garrigan has seen ample evidence of what Idi Amin is capable of, he gets incredibly drunk and sleeps with Amin's wife, makes no effort to conceal the affair, and doesn't even use protection, leading to her pregnancy and [[spoiler:her subsequent horrible death.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: Essentially what [[spoiler: Dr. Junju]] does, [[spoiler: healing Nicholas (tortured for betrayed Amin), freeing him, and secretly sending him on a plane out of Uganda]] knowing the consequences and simply saying "I don't know" when asked why he did it. And one of Amin's men promptly shoots him in the head.

-->'''Amin:''' Look at you. Is there one thing you have done that is good? Did you think this was all a game? 'I will go to Africa and I will play the white man with the natives.' Is that what you thought? We are not a game, Nicholas. We are real. This room here, it is real. I think [[spoiler: your death]] will be the first real thing that has happened to you.

-->'''Stone''': You know what they're calling you? [[EmbarrassingNickname His white monkey]].
-->'''Nicholas''': [[JustFollowingOrders I'm his doctor. It's not my job to judge the man!]]
-->'''Stone''': ''([[BriefAccentImitation in a mocking Scottish accent]])'' "I'm his doctor"! Is that your defence? Fuck off, Garrigan. We don't just hand out passports to chimps like you, particularly not chimps with blood on their hands!

* ForeignCultureFetish: Amin is fascinated by Scottish culture, going as far as proclaiming himself "the last king of Scotland" (hence the title). [[InvertedTrope Conversely]], he specifically despises English culture, so his affinity may also have something to do with seeing both Uganda and Scotland as rebels to the British state.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:The only major characters left alive at the end of the film are Amin and Garrigan.]]

* WideEyedIdealist: Deconstructed; Garrigan's idealism when it comes to Amin is ultimately revealed to be naiveté on an almost unforgivable scale. His belief in Amin effectively makes him an enabler to a psychotic dictator, and Stone bluntly tells him that he has blood on his hands for being "Amin's white money".

%%* AmbitionIsEvil: And how.

* BatmanGambit: Done by Nicholas in order to kill Amin. It doesn't work and the consequences for doing so are not to be envied.
* BaitTheDog: The central theme of the movie, both for Nicholas, and the audience.

* HannibalLecture: Amin gives one to Nicholas, after finding out that the latter had an affair with the former's wife Kay. Amin derides Nicholas for thinking that everything is a game, and telling him that [[spoiler: Nicholas' death may be the first real thing that happens to him.]] See also MightyWhitey below.

* TheLastTitle: The title.

* SidelongGlanceBiopic

* ShutUpHannibal: Continuing on from the "Hannibal Lecture" cited above, after Amin's men have pummeled Garrigan and are about to severely torture him, Amin [[JerkassHasAPoint (with arguable degrees of accuracy)]] accuses him of being a white man who came to Africa as if it were all a game, to screw the local women and act like it was a giant vacation. Whatever Garrigan's personal faults might be, his retort to this is to finally state to Amin's face what none of his inner circle ever had the courage to point out, no matter how ridiculously obvious it increasingly became: "You are a child. That's what makes you so fucking scary".

* WideEyedIdealist: Deconstructed; Garrigan's idealism when it comes to Amin is ultimately revealed to be naiveté on an almost unforgivable scale.

* BigBadFriend: Amin is the primary antagonist, and is the one responsible for just about every atrocity committed onscreen.

* {{Hypocrite}}: When Nicholas tries to convince Amin not to exile the Indians, Amin ridicules him for begging for his "fucking Asian tailors" and says that he's a nobody. When the media has a field day with this act, Amin says that he should have never done that and asks Nicholas why he didn't convince him not to, saying that he's his "personal advisor".
* [[InSeriesNickname In Film Nickname]]: Stone informs Nicholas that the public refers to him as "Amin's white monkey".

* AffablyEvil: Idi Amin, full stop. He can go to polite and jovial to raging, paranoid and vindictive in moments, and back again. And you never know what you will say that will set him off.

* AmbitionIsEvil: And how.

* EvilIsHammy: Amin.