Chris Morris’s Four Lions, set in the UK, is a very funny film about modern jihadism and how the modern terrorist is sometimes his own worse enemy. The idea emerged from a newspaper clipping about a group of terrorists who planned to ram a US warship with a boat full of explosives. The joke being that the boat sank on the way to its target. This incident gave the director the idea that although ‘terrorism is about ideology, it is also about berks’.
In this case we meet four of them. The fact they are referred to as ‘four lions’ is a joke in itself as they are far from being kings of the jungle. Their weapon is a bomb, several in fact and yet they are simply not equipped to carry out their missions. The leader is Omar (Riz Ahmed) who decides to become a soldier fighting against the mistreatment of Muslims around the world. He creates a terrorist cell which is really just a bunch of blokes. They include Waj (Kayvan Novak) who can’t think for himself, Islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay) and Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) who is the one who can make a bomb, but the time is not right for him to be a suicide bomber because his father has, ‘started eating newspaper’. Go figure…
The writers’ sharp, comic writing style covers many angles and they maintain it includes, ‘all that brittleness you get when any kind of idealism hits the compromises of real life’. These areas deal with incompetence, machismo, various complexes and above all the grandiloquence that comes with ambition. It toys with the idea that being a terrorist gives some recruits a purpose in life which eluded them previously. They are not dissimilar to the types of recruits who join religious sects, although this film is neither pro nor anti religious.
There will undoubtedly be some adverse reaction to the content of this film and criticism will emerge from those who have not even seen it. However, it is important to acknowledge that satire works according to personal taste and lovers of films like Spinal Tap and Dr Strangelove will find this film hilarious. Those who don’t appreciate this type of raw comedy will probably find it goes right over their heads. Some will ask, ‘where is the joke in terror?’ and the answer, according to Morris is, ‘it is staring you right in the face. It is interesting that the Brits made a film like this so soon after 7/7. I suspect it will be a long time before the Americans can diffuse the potency of 9/11 by making a comedy about it.
// SALT
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