Four Lions

Director: Chris Morris
Cast: Nigel Lindsay, Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak and Adeel Ashtar
Releasing in cinemas: 19 August 2010
Rated: M

It takes a brave filmmaker to lampoon terrorism in Britain, especially the home-grown variety. However Chris Morris of TV’s Brass Eye and The Day Today has succeeded to a large extent with his sharply funny black escapade dealing with a group of the most ineffectual terrorists ever to blow up a crow. Coming along after the hilarious satire of In The Loop, the Brits do it again on a darker canvas in Four Lions.

There are some real belly laughs here, although at times you might wonder about the consequences of what you’re laughing about. There’s that fine grain of truth lurking in the background. It would be fair to say the script doesn’t so much ridicule terrorist attacks as these moronic converts trying to carry out suicide bombings. In fact, Morris rather expects us to sympathize with the inept bombers, especially Omar who seems a good family man. The message is about how ordinary people can be caught up in religious frenzy.

Set in the industrial north of England, four men gather to hatch a plan of mass destruction. White Islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsey) - loud and bigoted in the Alf Garnett tradition - is at loggerheads with the world, and in particular his Pakistani cohorts Omar (Riz Ahmed) and his dim-witted friend Waj (Kayvan Novak), who both wish to be soldiers in the war of terror. There’s also Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) the bomb maker, who can’t blow himself up at the moment because his sick father has just ‘started to eat newspaper’. His experiments appear somewhat doomed and local crows are depleted in number.

After a disastrous training camp in Pakistan, which has some of the funniest gags, Omar and Waj return to Barry fired with belated enthusiasm. Barry, concerned the world’s in moral decline because ‘people are playing stringed instruments,’ has the inspiration to bomb a mosque, with the dubious idea it will teach non-believers a lesson.

Fortunately the others decide, after discounting destroying the Internet, that the London Marathon is a more suitable target, even though sheep in the near vicinity are not safe anymore. With this fumbling cell of near-idiots the results are farcical and funny, if also a trifle close to the bone.

Chris Morris fires his satirical barbs in a wide arc, hitting religious taboos - ‘I can’t enter the room because there’s a woman present’ - blithering politicians, martyrdom messages, and a bumbling police shooting of the wrong guy (reference to an actual event). While playing for laughs, a number of more human moments have a chill to them. Omar tells his young son a bedtime story about the Lion King, with the animal characters being jihadists.

The actors aren’t especially well known, although Nigel Lindsay appeared in Rogue Trader and Woody Allen’s Scoop, while Riz Ahmed has a part in Centurion. Julia Davies (Cemetery Junction) makes a neat cameo out of the slow-witted Alice character. Sincerity in the readings gives a touch of pathos to the otherwise riotous conclusion.

Morris directs with a smart pace and pulls the gags out regularly. Production values are adequate if not lavish. There’s that trace of the television sketch leaking through, despite a pungent script by Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. Armstrong previously wrote In The Loop, and his use of strong language has not dulled here. Perhaps lacking the sophisticated slickness of In The Loop, this essay on the dark side still offers enough laughs to make you weep.

John Bale