AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

chow913 The mere fact that there are enough exploitation films based on Idi Amin to merit their own genre in a video store, Idi Aminxploitation is truly disturbing.I don't just mean films about Idi Amin, I mean outright exploitations films which use the Ugandan dictator to include as much sex and violence as possible.This one's unique by taking the bold move casting real Africans actors to play Africans rather than American Mulattos with fake accents. The authentic African accents are a double edged sword. While it does make us feel like this really is Africa but their accents are so strong it can be difficult to understand what they're saying. And now that I think of it they shouldn't even be speaking English at all! Oh well, still better than those American Mulattos.Idi Amin is right up there with Caligula as not being too important to history itself but extremely memorably simply for his insanity and debauchery.There's never a dull moment in this film. It's fast paced and Amin's insanity provides non stop entertainment.The only major problem is that if you don't actually know the history of Idi Amin you'll be lost. The film doesn't actually explain the context for many scenes. For example, the Israeli hostages and the raid at Entebbe are never explained.The ending is also a major let down. It just ends out of nowhere! There's no climax, no resolution, it's just ends by saying the film is devoted to Amin's victims. Yeah right! They made an exploitation film to honor the dead? It's certainly worth a watch and stands out as far better than any of the other Idi Aminxploitation films.

haythalk After watching 'The Last King of Scotland' last year, I became quite interested in finding out more about the madman that was Amin. I soon discovered that they had made a film in the early 80's and managed to watch a trailer on youtube. I immediately thought this would be a great movie to watch - not necessarily because it was well-acted or directed - but because it had that cheesy,crappy quality..so crap it's good sort of thing!So finally - and thanks to the wonders of youtube, i managed to watch the movie. It certainly lived up to my expectations. The movie does accurately portray the timeline of his regime and certainly gives you a sense of the terrible conditions people had to endure under his rule. When Amin appears on screen, he just seems to do one terrible thing after another - the movie does seem to be strung together by scene after scene of Amin shouting maniacally about cutting heads off/kicking out asians/shooting the archbishop/liking Hitler/eating human flesh etc etc...all makes for entertaining viewing I have to say..but then you have to bare in mind that this tyrant was real..so we must never forget that. Some notable quotes "No-one mess with Big Daddy!" "This is what happen to bad mommies" "i Like Hitler,i put statue of him in kampala" "i am sex champion" "for an African,you have gone very white!" "you call uganda money sh*t money!"In summary, definitely an exploitation film BUT does portray the man as the evil villain he was.

gormanster I watched this film a while ago now, and to me it plays more like an 80's action film than a genuine historical account of what went on during Amin's reign in Uganda. It's the way the film was paced, that leads a viewer to this impression. The film focuses only on Amin's reign in Uganda and not his early life, or how he came to be one of the worst dictators in history.However, I will say this, Joseph Olita, the actor who is playing Amin is very, very believable as the dictator. He steals every scene he is in, because of his remarkable physical resemblance to Amin. The scene where he orders the group of school children to observe the aftermath of the execution of one of his wives is a prime example of the genuine air of menace than Olita manages to convey.The film also captures much of the madness that was Amin. Whether he is awarding his young son Uganda's highest military Honor's, or consulting a witch doctor to determine who is plotting against him and then ordering the massacre of several tribes based on such advice is hard to fathom happening in the real world; but of course all available evidence said it did.So in summary, I guess this film is best enjoyed as an account of some of the horrors that took place in Uganda during Amin's reign. It doesn't provide any real insight in Amin, but that's not necessary a bad thing. Any insights into why Amin did what he did must be inferred because of the craziness of this man, and this film does a fairly good job of capturing some of that craziness.

Theo Robertson RISE AND FALL OF IDI AMIN has a very special significance for me because it's the very first movie I saw on video . It was late Autumn 1982 and the video recorder was really making waves on the home entertainment front and these were the days when there was little censorship as to what you could watch on video This may have been a slight problem for RISE AND FALL OF IDI AMIN , while not being a true video nasty in the sense that it was later banned on home video like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE etc it did become very very difficult to find after video censorship was brought into this country by the BBFC . It is a knowingly exploitative movie with some very shocking scenes of violence: People literally lose gallons of blood after being stabbed or shot , there's scenes of cannabilism and there's a very infamous scene in an Ugandan torture chamber where a man is hit over the head with a crow bar causing a fountain of blood to explode from his head Being in such a hurry to shock the audience the producers haven't made such a good job of explaining as to why Amin became such a cruel despot and everything seems to have skimmed over . That said there's no denying that the producers want the audience to know just how cruel Amin is - If he takes a liking to a woman he'll have her partner murdered by his goons and he'll force himself upon her , any journalists asking too many questions will be given a fair trial before they're executed and how many dictators have kicked out Asian Muslims from their country while holding the Israelis to ransom ? Perhaps the scene that sums up " Dada " the best is when someone tries to explain economics with him :" If we don't get inflation under control then the currency will be as worthless as toilet paper " " Sh*t paper ! SH*T PAPER . You call Ugandan money sh*t paper . Sargeant take this man outside and show him what we do to sh*t "which seems to suggest he was nothing more than an ignorant thug who after becoming head of state became a meglomaniac too . Joseph Olita while not exactly being in the Morgan Freeman class of acting does at least bare a close physical resemblance to Amin and unlike Yaphet Kotto in RAID ON ENTEBBE does at least project some of the deranged despot's personality on screen , and talking of the Entebbe raid see what Amin did while the IDF were saving the hostages ! As I said this has special significance for me . It's a film I remember because of the circumstances I saw it rather than the film itself having any outstanding qualities . It's not bad but it is violent exploitation rather than a bio-pic and when someone makes THE RISE AND FALL OF SADDAM I hope they just don't concentrate on the torture scenes