Four Lions

A comedy about suicide bombers. It's not an idea you expect to see made into a theatrically-released film, nor would you expect it go by without some measure of controversy, but Four Lions manages both of these feats - a living, breathing testament to Western society's mostly undemonstrated ability to treat such a subject in a mature and intelligent fashion. This goes both for the film itself and for the predominantly positive reactions from critics and filmgoers.

Confusingly, the 'four lions' of the title are actually five to begin with... a disparate bunch of disallusioned muslims living in modern England, and working together as an inept terrorist cell. Omar (Riz Ahmed) gets a call from his 'uncle' to travel to Pakistan and train with the muhajadeen. He couldn't be more excited, for his little group of wannabes it's a tremendous opportunity, but the trip goes horribly wrong and neither Omar or his dopey offsider Waj (Kavyan Novak) are accepted into the elite terrorist force. Omar returns home and decides to take charge of his cell regardless of the failure and the five of them start planning a suicide attack together... a tragedy waiting to happen if they can ever navigate they way through a sea filled with their own idiocy, misconceptions, personal vendettas and disagreements.

The main anyone will be thinking when they watch this film is: just how offensive will it be? Amazingly, despite some very black humour, the film doesn't come across as offensive at all. Due to writer-director Chris Morris' heavy degree of research the script has a ring of authenticity about it despite the sometimes ridiculous nature of the characters and the situations they get themselves into. Everything about this film is incredibly well thought out, it doesn't make light of terrorism by taking any easy options, nor does it use shock-factor comedy to push the audience's buttons. The humour comes from the backwards and bizarre attitudes of these characters.

There's this expectation in the Western world that suicide bombers are fundamentalists; Islamic warriors sent forth as an advance party for a full scale Islamic invasion. But this simply just isn't the case. As David Hicks, Anders Breivik and Timothy McVeigh have demonstrated, the more likely scenario behind terrorism in Western countries is for it to be the result of sad, ignorant, disturbed or misled individuals with various unstable elements in their lives (be it family, community, health, etc). The 'lions' in the title is an ironic label, the guys in this film are just regular British Yorkshire Muslims who buy into a fantasy because their own lives are deficient in some way.

Unfortunately, governments find it hard to sell international wars to their constituents if terrorism in the West is shown to be fuelled by crackpots rather than fundamentalists, so we don't get a lot of exposure to this idea in the media. This is what makes Four Lions such a golden and unique film. It doesn't generalise, and it doesn't scapegoat, nor does it let anyone off the hook. Nothing is safe from ridicule... I loved Omar's deeply religious brother, the film doesn't take the usual Liberal viewpoint that religions other than Christianity should somehow be safe from satire. Also, each of the five would-be martyrs are all representative of different kinds of Islamic terrorists. All too often the Western media tars these terrorists with the same brush as blanket fanatics, failing to come to any understanding of what lies behind this behaviour in order to continue fuelling the public's fear. There's Omar, who wants to be a hero for his family; Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), quiet and brainwashed by his father's medieval opinions; Waj, too simple-minded to make his own decisions, Hassan (Arsher Ali), a bored youth who gets bullied into it; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a white convert to Islam who's dangerously self-conscious about his general ignorance. Barry is easily the best character - a hothead who's eager to blame the West (and Jews) for all his problems. I couldn't help but laugh whenever his car broke down and he blamed it on the Jews, or his tenacious refusal to give up the 'revolutionary' idea of bombing a mosque to start a holy war.

This is both a brilliant comedy and a brilliant film. Some of it gets a little uncomfortable and I was surprised by how far it went down the rabbit hole in order to sell its convictions to the audience, but I think Four Lions will one day be viewed as a landmark film for using humour to deconstruct and defuse the very essence of terrorism. One of the best films of 2010.

DIRECTOR: Chris Morris
WRITER/SOURCE: Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Simon Blackwell.
KEY ACTORS: Riz Ahmed, Adeel Akhtar, Nigel Lindsay, Arsher Ali, Kavyan Novak, Preeya Kalidas, Benedict Cumberbatch

RELATED TEXTS:
- Jihad Satire is a small subsection of political satire that works to take the mickey out of Islamic terrorism. So far there aren't really any other major works that do this other than Four Lions, though the Edinborough Comedy Festival did feature a show in 2007 called Jihad! The Musical.
- Chris Morris is an actor-writer who only recently branched out into filmmaking. He appeared in the first two series of The I.T. Crowd as a recurring castmember, and co-wrote the satirical sitcom Nathan Barley. He got his start prior to this working on the current affairs parodies The Day Today and Brass Eye.
- The topical and fearless nature of the satire in Four Lions has been compared to Dr Strangelove. See also the more political (and less controversial) films In the Loop, Wrong is Right and Wag the Dog.

AWARDS
BAFTAs - won Best Debut. Also nominated for Best Film.
Sundance Festival - nominated Grand Jury Prize.