Chris Morris’ tv shows in Britain have caused outrage, controversy and hours of amusement. Whilst his ‘edgy’ humour isn’t to everyone’s taste, his scathing appraisals of the media, hipsters and celebrities has borne fruit in cult hits like Brass Eye and Nathan Barley. Now turning his hand to filmmaking, Morris has chosen a topic which seems completely inappropriate for comedy- terrorism. Four Lions follows the fortunes of a small group of British jihadists as they attempt to come up with a way to strike a blow against a country they feel alienated from. In the same way that This is Spinal Tap looked at heavy metal music, and In the Loop looked at transatlantic politics, Four Lions is a farce looking at the modern idea of terrorism.
Morris spent three years researching the topic speaking to terrorism experts, police, secret services, imans and members of the British Muslim community. What he found was there were plenty of comedy elements that already existed in the situation- like a terrorist cell that accidently overloaded their boat with explosives, so it sunk before reaching its US warship target or a terrorist mastermind who spend hours looking for a costume that wouldn’t make him look fat in his martyrdom video. A jihadist cell- like any other grouping of people- is full of misunderstandings, petty rivalries and bravado. Morris sums it up pretty succinctly-“Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.”
Four Lions’ jihadist cell consists of: Omar (Riz Ahmed, Centurion), the unofficial leader of the group, who has an uncle in Pakistan with links to training camps; Waj (Kayvan Novak, The Fonejacker) who doesn’t have much going on upstairs, relying on Omar to do all his thinking; Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a white Islamic convert who is overly public about his views and really wants to be leading the cell; Faisal (Adeel Akhtar, Traitor) a quiet, sad man who worries about blowing himself up because then who’ll look after his sick dad. This group struggles to come up with a plan of attack they can all agree upon, with the ever antagonist Barry unilaterally recruits another member, Hassan (Arsher Ali) a university student/wannabe political rapper.
There are times when the humour in Four Lion slips into silliness, but for the majority of the film it is sharp thanks to the scriptwriting of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show). At times it almost feels like you are being deceived by the comedy and wonder if you should be laughing at what you are seeing. This is the clever thing about this film- as it progresses you actually feel quite sorry for the men at the centre of the film. They are hopelessly inept and are confused about their grievances. Omar’s family scenes are particularly depressing- he explains jihadism to his young son using Disney’s Lion King as an analogy. Morris doesn’t allow his characters to escape responsibility just because the film is framed as a comedy, nor has he made his characters simply idiotic and sat back and poked fun at them, his purpose is to show how the whole situations has become a farce.
Four Lions is a film you expect to be funny given the comedic talent attached, but surprisingly it is also strangely moving as well.
