Last week I went to see The Last King of Scotland with likely Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator. Much of the movie is from the point of view of a Scottish doctor tempted by power, money, and charm.
After the movie many lessons are obvious concerning naiveté, power, perception, noticing the world around you, etc. As I began to think of this and other movies with an obvious "bad guy", we always lessons from our poor, unsuspecting hero but always write off the "bad guy" as too troubled or too evil to relate to. So I challenged myself to figure out what I can learn from Idi Amin in the movie.
The lesson I took is that Amin never took responsibility for his actions. In a telling scene, Amin told the doctor that his "most trusted adviser" didn't convince Amin of something important. The blame then shifts from Amin to someone else. Take responsibility, don't blame others when you should look at yourself.
Still, how often do we just write off the character flaws of the "bad guy"? I'm talking about a semi-serious movie. It's not like you're supposed to learn anything from the Bond bad guy.
Anyway...
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