Chris Morris has always skipped merrily down his own road of good intentions hand in hand with his friend controversy and this has led to him being both admired and detested. With shows like The Day Today and Brass Eye to his name, he has been known to tackle and take the mick out of pretty serious issues (the outstanding BrassEye Special that warned us all of a Paedogeddon springs to mind) and after his comparatively tame appearances in The IT Crowd or his Shoreditch wanker ribbing sitcom Nathan Barley his new Islamic suicide bombing comedy Four Lions certainly lives up to his ‘Media Terrorist’ label.
The film centres around five would be martyrs as they plan to show the Western World what is it is to be (in their ill conceived notion filled minds) a true follower of Islam. It’s easy to feel hatred for someone who would take the lives of innocent people in the name of a belief, but somehow, while the Lions are plotting a horrific event and along with all the laughs, sympathy washes over you from the screen. The audience seem to forget what the characters true intentions are as they watch Omar (played by Riz Ahmed as the obvious brains in the group) display a happy and playful home life with his wife and son or hearing Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) speak lovingly about his dad. Although sympathetic and very funny, there is still a vein of unease running throughout Four Lions, watching parents tell their young child about the glory of martyrdom or seeing Omar knowingly brainwash his dim-witted but pleasant brother, Wej (Kayvan Novak), into ignoring his feelings and look forward to an eternity that can only be compared to the greatness of the Rubber Dinghy Rapids at Alton Towers, makes you wonder if you should really be laughing.
The same can be said for Barry (Nigel Lindsay) who comes across as being a British convert purely as release for his racism towards Jews, anything that goes wrong for him and it’s the Jews fault (even when his car breaks down he blames the Jewish parts). While still a truly horrible person, Barry brings so much humour through his ineptness, stupidity and anger when the others of the group happily insult him to his face while speaking in Urdu. As an outsider, Barry adds an element of hostility in an otherwise close knit team who are able to share jokes while planning destruction and dance along to Toploaders awful song ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ together. Using this closeness as an ongoing theme, Four Lions fails to ask the question why? Why do these young men who don’t seem to be suffering that much and are not oppressed at all want to blow themselves up. The only answer we seem to get is because of all the ‘Jews and slags an that’ but seeing as this film isn’t a political thriller it doesn’t really need to answer those questions and is happy to stay in the Secret Flat arseing about with explosives!
Judging by Morris’ past efforts Four Lions doesn’t court controversy quite as much as some expected, and would perhaps have worked better a few years ago, but it is still very very funny and should be seen before it ends its cinema run.
Four Lions is rated (15) and is still playing at most cinemas.