When Good Looking Movies Get Bad Trailers...

...It pisses me right off. It's a basic principle, if you've got a strong movie, market it to its advantages. Yet somewhere along the way, studio marketing departments conclude that doing this makes the movie unappealing, so they decide to mash together every crucial scene in the movie and throw some fast-paced, constantly changing music over it, and call it a promotion.

Promote it does not.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, check out the trailer for The Last King of Scotland, which has revieved huge kudos from festivals, most notably for the bold and striking performance of Forest Whitaker. Now, while Mr. Whitaker's performance is showcased rather well in the trailer, there's so much going on, with the out-of-place soundtrack and the MTV-style quick-cutting, it makes Forest the selling point, whereas the film overall should be the subject.
The movie has a similar look and general direction of last year's The Constant Gardener, but to say Last King of Scotland has been rewarded the same subtlety would be a lie. The worst part about watching the trailer is the fact that the rapid-beat music changes every 5 seconds to another song with a slightly faster or slower beat. It puts the pace and flow right off, and makes everything seem sluggish. From the look of the subject matter, there should have been a slower, more dramatic pace, leading to a buildup. In a way, that's what the existing trailer does, but it does it very sloppily, and the build-up crashes and burns like big hunk of Scottish peat. Ahhh, the peat.
Another of the trailer's gaping down-points is that it focuses way too much on informing its audience on the premise of the film. Now, that's acceptable to a certain degree. But when you spend the first half of the trailer detailing the first half of the plot, and then the second half of the trailer showing crucial scenes and plot elements, I take that as ruining the full intended experience. But hey, I think I'll be able to forget what I know by the time I get to watch the movie anyhow.

Overall, The Last King of Scotland looks very promising. If it can emulate the success of The Constant Gardener, I'll be ecstatic. But the trailer was a total and forgettable disappointment. Note to Fox Searchlight marketing department: treat your films with a degree of dignity. And don't be afraid to take risks with risky films. That's what they're designed for.
Making independent films seem mainstream isn't fooling anyone, and in most cases, everyone and everything suffers from it.

The Last King of Scotland - Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Anticipation Level: Medium-High
Look out for: Forest Whitaker mastering the Ugandan accent perfectly.
US Release date: 27th September, 2006.
Trailer Source