Four Lions Criticism

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the EMPIRE masterpiece #131
FOUR LIONS
2010. OUT: NOW CERT:15 WORDS: ANNA OLNEY-SMITH A comedy…about terrorism? Queue the unconvincing stares. Four Lions, at first (disbelieving) glance, seems like another dark satirical comedy that falls short of expectations and raises more disappointment than laughs. The director of this ground-breaking film, amidst the other flops of its kind (think ), is Chris Morris; who, along with Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong wrote the film itself. Morris has recently amassed an impressive body of work in the UK as a satirical writer, director, actor and all-round prankster, and is perhaps best known is his current-affairs TV satires Brass Eye and The Day Today, or in his most recent appearance as managerial madman …show more content…

Insulting? Controversial? A gritty piece on the conflicting ideologies of terrorism? Hilarious, even? You may be surprised to hear it combines all of the latter. Four Lions tells the hilarious story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. The story centres on the cleverly-crafted character of Omar (played by the outstanding Riz Ahmed), a jihadist with a loving wife and child who yearns to be chosen for a suicide mission, along with his like-minded but hapless comrades; his bumbling klutz of a brother Waj (Kayvan Novak); and white-convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay) an egomaniac and a hothead. Meanwhile, dim-bulb Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) is busy training crows to fly around with bombs strapped to them (hilarity ensues) and late-comer Hassan (Arsher Ali) is a rapper-terrorist wannabe – who interrupts a public meeting by pretending to be a suicide bomber, only with party poppers instead of explosives. Sounds like a mishmash of characters? Somehow Morris makes it work - the actors seem to expertly play off each other and create such a powerful comedy, you’ll find yourself laughing, feeling guilty about laughing, then laughing some …show more content…

What makes it a comedy, and a successful comedy at that, is the careful choice of topic Morris makes. He focuses his satirical wit not at all on the doctrines of Islam, but simply at the activity of suicide bombing itself. It is not treated with the nervous, shocked respect generally found on the news or in drama, but rather cheerful disdain. This is a film in which suicide bombers are not martyr-warriors, or powerful enemies to be hated and feared, but rather, ridiculous fools. In this film, everyone is stupid. The suicide bombers themselves are stupid; the police hunting them are stupid (ending with a mix up between the Honey Bear and a Wookie) and even the clever protagonist is the most stupid of

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