Terrorism. Not very funny is it? So it’s no surprise that from the announcement to subsequent release, Four Lions has been surrounded by uneasy excitement. Coupled with the fact that it is co-written and directed by, supposedly, the most infamous man in British comedy and you end up with a lot of column inches, a lot of drummed up, empty controversy and an ‘I have to see this’ attitude.
The one thing that you could never attack Brass Eye’s Chris Morris of is jumping in head first. It’s been well documented that Morris spent years researching terrorism, the jihad and the people behind the Daily Mail headlines. Whilst some say that there is no joke in terror, Morris disagrees. Along with the innocent victims, trauma and devastation there is also the male machismo, incompetence, hierarchies and dynamics that Morris has brilliantly identified and brought to the screen.
From the first scene, in which Waj (Novak aka The Fonejacker) attempts to make a threatening video but instead ends up looking like a complete tosspot by arguing whether or not he should pose with a toy machine gun, it’s clear that Islam is not the subject of laughter here, it’s the dynamics between the men that is.
The film follows four very different Muslim men who decide to become suicide bombers after being radicalised. Whilst Omar (Ahmed) and Waj go to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, the territorial Barry (Lindsay) recruits a fifth member in Hassan (Ali) and Fessal (Akhtar) tests bombs on crows. After the initial bumps in the road – arguments over Hassan’s involvement, what is martyrdom and where to meet their maker – they finally agree that the London Marathon is the best way to send their message and make a severe impact.
It’s hard to be able to adequately judge this film, since it’s obviously so intelligent and thought out that most of Morris’s meticulous work will get lost in translation. The farce element is strong but much like the lunacy of Monty Python and Spinal Tap, it is far more intelligent than initially realised. That’s all well and good, but is it funny?
Like the aforementioned comedy classics, yes, yes it is. It manages to blend completely stupid (the video recording, arguing over what costumes to wear) with more subtle but slightly uneasy ‘I shouldn’t laugh but I will’ moments such as Omar explaining the jihad to his son using the characters from The Lion King. The biggest laughs are reserved for the scenes in which useless Fessal blows himself up (TV reporter: “The head of an Asian man has fallen out of a tree.”), when Omar runs into a work colleague whilst carrying bags of explosives and when the four argue about where to do the deed. Barry says a mosque whilst the lovingly stupid Waj suggests a branch of Boots.
It’s a touch of genius that Morris and his co-writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain have looked at conversations that must happen and put a spin on it. The downside is that the film gives a face to the people responsible for such atrocities. We would normally see them as killers, maniacs and murderers, whereas here we see them as friends, fathers and misguided people. It should be noted that the direction and script never asks us to empathise with them but the feelings do crop up only to disappear at the site of grown men dressed as an upside down clown, the Honey Monster and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle running from the fuzz. Not to mention the painfully funny scene in which these bombers singalong enthusiastically to Toploaders “Dancing in the Moonlight”.
Morris has always been brave and Four Lions is a film that, although not as perfect and funny as initially hoped, should be rated for its mere existence alone.
