Review – General Idi Amin Dada

Barbet Schroeder takes on one of the most notorious dictators of the second half of the 20th century and – with his more-or-less-full cooperation – makes a documentary about him. The result is more than a little creepy as Amin swaggers around Uganda doing the whole tyrant thing. Of particular interest are the sequences in which he directs a military exercise in which his troops train to attack the Golan Heights and the cabinet meeting during which he drones on and on, briefly berating a minister who later turned up dead. This is about half a decade before Amin was deposed and fled for his life. Indeed, this is even before the raid on Entebbe, so we see him at the height of his power. At times he seems jovial, almost goofy. But then the bad craziness comes out again. Fascinating stuff. Worth seeing