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Review: ‘Four Lions’
So the visuals that begin Chris Morris’ “Four Lions” aren’t shocking. It’s what the men have to say that offers such a whiplash. Armed with toy guns, a group of would-be jihadists argues hilariously over the best way to terrorize.
The scene plays like something out of a “Three Stooges” movie, with the men bickering breathlessly as their leader, Omar (Riz Ahmed), shakes his head in disbelief.
With his feature debut, British satirist Chris Morris suggests that not all of these self-styled militants seen on Al Jazeera are as ruthless and intimidating as their carefully crafted image would have you believe.
Family man Omar is the frustrated ringleader of a group of four men in the north of England who are plotting a suicide bomb attack. Though we are offered little background as to the group’s motivation, Omar’s reasoning is the most grounded in any sense of reality. Having lost a family member to an attack, the Westernized Omar thirsts for revenge, and his rag-tag bunch of mates is all too eager to help him strike in the name of Allah.
After a short and unsuccessful trip to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan with his dimwitted sidekick, Waj (Kayvan Novak), who fancies himself a “Paki Rambo,” Omar returns home to harness the misguided enthusiasm of the rest of his group.
There’s Barry (Nigel Lindsay), an amped-up and aggravated Caucasian convert to Islam, who threatens to go off half-cocked at any moment — a sort of jihadi Walter Sobchak from “The Big Lebowski”; the lovable and confused Fessal (Adeel Akhtar), who attempts to train a crow to act as a suicide aviation device; and the group’s recent addition, Hassan (Arsher Ali), who fancies himself the Ali G of jihadis, rapping nonsensical threats on video.
The group moves into a small apartment beneath a freeway. But they are so disorganized — their rapid-fire bouts of brilliant and cutting dialogue are some of the funniest scenes you will see all year — that they can’t even decide why they are attacking or what to attack, let alone how to construct explosive devices.
Despite their confusion and the ambiguity of their actual intentions, they have set themselves on a course from which they cannot or will not stray.
The fun and games come to a screeching halt as one member of the motley crew loses his life. But instead of turning back, the group puts its collective foot to the accelerator. Despite the inherent absurdity, these fools are dangerous.
In an attempt to thwart the bombing, government agencies become involved, and there is enough room for fools on both sides of this pervasive and undefined war on terror. The semi-competence of the terrorists and law enforcement officials is just enough to get some people (often innocent ones) killed, while avoiding a calamity of massive proportions.
“Four Lions” might be the funniest movie of the year, but it is also one of the most puzzling and challenging, as it forces us to recognize the ambiguity of an issue that so many would prefer to see in stark and concrete terms. Morris shows that those who are the most devout and conservative are often the least dangerous, while those who might choose to do us harm are often completely devoid of any true religious understanding (or intelligence). Sometimes our inability to differentiate between what we know and what we think we know can be scary. So scary, it’s funny.
(“Four Lions” is being distributed by Alamo CEO Tim League’s Drafthouse Films.)
- Showtimes for “Four Lions”
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