Four Lions
Directed by: Chris Morris
Written by: Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Chris Morris, Simon Blackwell
Starring: Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay, Arsher Ali, Adeel Akhtar

Four Lions has been one of the most eagerly anticipated British films of the last few years, largely due to it being the directorial debut of Chris Morris. Morris is seen as the master of British satire having created numerous successful comedies series, two of which I particularly love: The Day Today and Brass Eye (if you haven’t seen the Brass Eye Paedophile special I highly recommend it).

What drew me to this moreso was the writing team joining Morris in the form of Simon Blackwell, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. The latter two write Peep Show, one of the funniest things on British TV, potentially ever.

Brass Eye in particular was a comment on fear in the media and so it was not surprising to see the natural progression into the subject matter of terrorism and more specifically a roundabout take on the 7/7 London bombers. The story follows a group of wannabe suicide bombers and their misguided attempts at forming a terrorist plot. The humour is in full effect from the offset with their pitiful failure at creating a martyrdom video. The plot follows their never ending cock ups and internal squabbles but forges on as their plan becomes more likely and the stakes become higher.

This is not a political commentary on how young Muslims are radicalized masquerading as a flat-out comedy, nor is it the follow up to last year’s In The Loop. The best parts of the film are almost what is notably left out, being intentionally ambiguous about their motives and, for example, never elaborating on why the ringleader is so open about his plans with his wife and young son, who are in full support. It manages to successfully avoid any spoof elements by maintaining their earnest desire to kill people without any further justification, which I thought created a perfect balance of suspense and humour. As I left the theatre I heard two women commenting on “how sad it really was” and I can’t help but think they missed the point. The satire is subtle and refrains from a heavily political message or undertone and so really does play for laughs.

The group themselves provide different styles of humour, from Barry (Nigel Lindsay) the white, angry muslim convert who seems to completely miss the point of the goal of terrorism to Waj (Kayvan Novak) who seems to miss the point of pretty much everything, including the result of being a “suicide” bomber. The other two hapless cohorts come in the form of Hassan (Arsher Ali), who raps about jihad and stages fake bombings in seminars which result in him exploding party poppers as a political statement, and Fessel (Adeel Akhtar) with his master plan to train suicide bombing crows.

As with the majority of Morris’ work, it’s so close to the bone that it practically taunts nitpickers to criticize, something that has always been one of his strengths. His fearlessness is evident here and it simply works, the broad spectrum of humour means that it will play differently depending on the viewer and you completely get on board with the characters and find yourself laughing at jokes without any tinges of guilt.

Four Lions went down really well during its festival run at Sundance and SXSW but I do worry slightly how it will play to an international audience. Northern English accents aside, a large amount of the jokes are heavily based within British culture, but the overall humour is reminiscent of classic British comedy and so should appeal beyond any missed cultural references. It’s an absolute joy to see some of the best comedic writing talent really having fun and pushing controversial subject matter as far as they can take it. — Charlotte

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