THIS ONE'S OUT FOR BLOOD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

They could have called ``The Last King of Scotland'' ``All the Last King's Men.'' It's practically the same story as Robert Penn Warren's classic book -- with a few crucial differences, of course. And it's a much better movie than last week's cockeyed adaptation.

Though itself based on a novel, ``Last King,'' which opens today, names real names and incorporates actual historical events. The monstrously charismatic power figure is Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada, and the film is set in the early 1970s, from the time he seized power in the African nation to the bizarre hostage crisis at Entebbe Airport.

A convincing Idi Amin

Forest Whitaker is a mood-swingin' marvel as the charming, intimidating and, in this film's intimate portrait, remarkably needy despot. But like that other ``King's'' movie, the story is really about a close observer of power. And in this one, that witness pays a much dearer, and more dramatically persuasive, price for his dance with the devil.

Though Amin did have a Scottish doctor, the film's young physician Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) is wholly made up. Fresh out of medical school and unthrilled by the prospect of a boring family practice like his father's, Garrigan heads out for adventure -- and, hopefully, some first-class partying -- in Africa.

At first he finds professional fulfillment, willing local girls and even the tempted wife (Gillian Anderson) of his boss at a Ugandan country clinic. But when newly self-installed dictator Amin is hurt in a road accident, Garrigan impresses him with his healing skills, impulsiveness and the fact that he's from Scotland, which the strongman considers a kindred victim of English oppression. It's the first of the film's several perfectly great sequences.

Start of the bloody road

Soon, Amin has seduced Garrigan into becoming his personal physician and moving to the bustling, modern capital, Kampala. There are gifts of sports cars, fantastic parties (the cowboy barbecue looks particularly rockin') and increasing influence on policies that both the doctor and perhaps even his employer feel will better the lives of all Ugandans.

But an assassination attempt or two later, and Amin starts inexorably down the bloodthirsty path that would eventually cost some 300,000 Ugandans their lives and millions more untold misery.

Unfortunately, just about when this starts to unfold and Garrigan's own guilt-by-association dilemma should provide all the moral drama any film would need, the doctor has to stupidly follow his behavior pattern and embark on an affair with the hottest of Amin's wives, Kay (Kerry Washington). This adds extra dimensions of potboiling melodrama that undeniably ratchet up the suspense, but it also unnecessarily cheapens the film. We get that Garrigan's a compromised white man with good and bad motives for being in Africa without it. And however politically naive he may be, no doctor can be this big a fool.

But while the detour into John le Carre territory may not have been necessary, ``King of Scotland'' does it with infintely more verve and visceral tension than last year's self- righteous ``Constant Gardener'' managed to generate.

Credit that to director Kevin Macdonald, who makes a hard-impact transition from semi-

documentaries (``Touching the Void'') to real-looking fiction here (the film was shot almost entirely in Uganda). And to screenwriters Jeremy Brock (``Mrs. Brown'') and Peter Morgan (the upcoming, brilliant ``The Queen''), who adapted Africa-raised Giles Foden's source novel. They all have an instinct for character flaw and duplicity that keeps matters from ever going simple-minded, as is the fate of many a Third World movie tragedy.

Split personality

But it would all be for naught without Whitaker, who makes Amin fun, funny, vulnerable and poignant while never letting us forget his murderous monomania. It's a skillful impersonation that seeks to humanize at the same time -- and like Amin's death squads, rarely fails to chillingly find its target.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - Three stars

(R: violence, sex, nudity, language, drug use, racism)

Starring: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Simon McBurney.

Director: Kevin Macdonald.

Running time: 2 hr. 1 min.

Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; NuWilshire, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Chilling, fictionalized tale of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his Scottish doctor is smart socio-political filmmaking for its first hour, effectively tense but cheapened intrigue thriller for its last half.

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Forest Whitaker is an imposing presence as the bloodthirsty Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in ``The Last King of Scotland.''