The emphasis of this spectacular biopic is fairly and squarely on its charismatic hero rather than attempting to explain the political waves that buoyed the short, turbulent political rise and fall of independent Congo's first elected president, Patrice Émery Lumumba (1925-1961).
Although the meddling in Congo's internal affairs by Belgium and the United States are clearly signposted, the minutiae of how Lumumba managed in just two very eventful months in 1960 to lose control of much of his own army and with it the keys to the presidential palace in Leopoldville are initially extremely hard to follow; but sadly become all too easy to understand as the net closes in on our hero and we return to the (very) sticky end he came to with which the film begins and ends.
Although the meddling in Congo's internal affairs by Belgium and the United States are clearly signposted, the minutiae of how Lumumba managed in just two very eventful months in 1960 to lose control of much of his own army and with it the keys to the presidential palace in Leopoldville are initially extremely hard to follow; but sadly become all too easy to understand as the net closes in on our hero and we return to the (very) sticky end he came to with which the film begins and ends.