Idi Amin and alluded to in the film "The Last King of Scotland" in 2006, a movie which earned actor Forest Whitaker an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Amin. During Amin's time in power, popular media outside of Uganda often portrayed him as an essentially comic and eccentric figure. In a 1977 assessment typical of the time, a "Time" magazine article described him as a "killer and clown, big-hearted buffoon and strutting martinet". The comedy-variety series "Saturday Night Live" aired four Amin sketches between 1976 and 1979, including one in which he was an ill-behaved houseguest in exile,
Idi Amin school with only a fourth-grade English-language education, and did odd jobs before being recruited to the army by a British colonial army officer. Amin joined the King's African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army in 1946 as an assistant cook. In later life, he falsely claimed he was forced to join the armies during World War II and that he served in the Burma Campaign. He was transferred to Kenya for infantry service as a private in 1947, and served in the 21st KAR infantry battalion in Gilgil, Kenya until 1949. That year, his unit was deployed to northern