1. Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland
Now we come to the winner, Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. Out of the five nominees I do agree with the members of the Academy that he was the best, although to be honest, I'm not as crazy about the turn as many seemed to be. As soon as the movie hit the scene, and it was clear that it would be eligible for the 2006 Oscars, Forest Whitaker was anointed king of Hollywood (not Scotland) for his performance as Idi Amin, the despot dictator of Uganda during the 1970's who ruled over the African country with a tyrannical fist. As with Half-Nelson, the key here as an objective juror is to judge Whitaker's performance on its own, disregarding the subpar quality of the film itself. Exploitive, hokey, and unilluminating, the film surprisingly takes on the tone of a cheap "B" horror movie at times, but putting these facts aside for a moment, what are the merits of Whitaker's performance? It's definitely a good performance, unquestionably worthy of the nomination, but something keeps me back from embracing it as fully as I might of with say the performance of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Man, or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. When I break it down, it's clear that this hesitation is due to the nagging notion that when watching Whitaker as Idi Amin, I am watching mimicry more than true thespian art. It is nonetheless a superb imitation, but much like Jamie Foxx in Ray, there is something lacking to the character as a person. Whitaker does infuse Amin with a jovial side, along with a merciless thirst for the blood of anyone who gets in his way, and for the most part, he doesn't overplay his hand on either side of the coin. The problem though is he doesn't really enlighten us to the man's philosophical core, instead turning the man into some treacherous super villain you might see in a comic book film. Now it's hard to put the blame for this directly on Whitaker, given as most of this responsibility falls on the films writers and director, but the great actors always manage to find a way, even in the minutest of details, to add something in order to flesh out a character. Whitaker does not do this with his version of Amin, settling for the straight up evil that inevitably leaves you cold. It is a great performance (don't believe I think otherwise), and there have been far worse performance that have passed the Academy's test of valor, but there's just that something special missing from the performance to categorize it as a true "tour de force".
That concludes my take on 2006s Best Actor race, but let me know what ranking you would put the nominees in if you had your druthers in the comments section below, or sound off on what great performances from the year you think the Academy missed out on all together.