Is this a Bafta I see before me?

Two superb central performances, a vividly evoked sense of place, and a welcome capacity not to simplify events make this pretty much unmissable. Forest Whitaker was totally deserving of his recent Bafta and is surely fave for the Oscar for his all consuming Amin, James McAvoy is also totally believable as the willingly gullible, deeply flawed and wildly ambitious personal physician. The fact that his character is a construct of a number of real people, help to make this an impressionistic version of events, and somehow, because it doesn't stick slavishly to documentary realism, gives a far more believable portrayal of the man and his brutal times.