Fundamentalist farce from king of cringe
IT'S hard to know what to make of incendiary satirist Chris Morris' latest movie, Four Lions.
FILM REVIEW: FOUR LIONS
Reviewed by Adam Kamien
Rating: ****
IT’S hard to know what to make of incendiary satirist Chris Morris’ latest effort Four Lions. A pitch-black screwball comedy about four homegrown Jihadis in London’s north, the film is as unsettling as it is hilarious — think the Marx Brothers do martyrdom or a fundamentalist Flying High.
It’s a miracle that this film ever got made, but perhaps, more bewildering, is that it works.
Morris is known in Britain for his work on TV and radio lampooning the media, politics and social constructs. One of his TV shows, Brass Eye, set a record for the number of complaints received, when it mocked the moral panic surrounding paedophilia after the death of an eight-year-old girl in 2001 in Sussex.
And Morris hasn’t demurred this time round. References to the 7/7 bombers who killed 52 people in a series of coordinated attacks in London in 2005 are particularly inflammatory, and were the subject of outrage on the film’s release in the UK.
Incensed with the treatment of Muslims around the world, Omar (Riz Ahmed) is determined to become a mujaheddin soldier so he can take the fight to “kafar bastards” who he believes are oppressing his brothers.
In his rag-tag group of would-be martyrs is Fessal (Adeel Akhtar), rage-filled white Islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay) and the bubble-headed Waj (Kayvan Novak).
Omar and Waj travel to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, while Barry — who rants that buying Jaffa oranges is tantamount to “supporting nukes for Israel” — and Fessal stay at home to hold down the fort. But the trip is cut short when Omar accidentally kills a top-ranking militant while trying to bring down a US drone.
Omar lies to his cohorts on his return, saying he has been empowered to lead the group to martyrdom and the plotting begins.
With debate raging about who is “the most al-Qaeda”, each would-be militant has his own ideas about the best way to strike. Barry wants to blow up a mosque in an effort to “radicalise moderate Muslims”, while Waj wants to blow up the internet. Fessal devises a plan to fly crows with bombs strapped to them into “one of those buildings that’s full of Jews and slags”.
Morris says the inspiration for Four Lions came from research into terrorist cells, which turned up real-life botched attacks. One such incident involved a group of militants in Yemen who tried to blow up a US warship. According to Morris, they loaded a small boat with masses of explosives and sank the boat.
Nearly every character in Morris’ film is a Clouseau-esque dolt, including members of the federal police, who totally botch an attempt to stop Omar and his group from blowing themselves up at the London Marathon.
Ultimately, the film succeeds because Morris is successful in making sympathetic characters of his main players, in particular Novak, who is superlative as the suggestible lump Waj.
Subversive, smart and laugh-out-loud funny, Four Lions will have you rolling in the aisles and hating yourself for it.
Four Lions is currently screening.
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