Four Lions

With The Day Today and its more acerbic follow-up Brasseye, supreme satirist Chris Morris made a mockery of the madness of the popular media by saying what he saw. It was funny because it could have been true. With Four Lions, Morris's focus is no longer on the manipulator, but rather the manipulated. Yet by presenting this jihad suicide squad as a group of bumbling misfits, chugging along the road to apotheosis in a car fitted with dodgy "Jewish spark plugs", it's still about the madness – here, the madness of a cracked ideology believed in mostly because it's made up as it goes along.

This is not really a film about Islam, or even religious fundamentalism, but identity. Omar (an excellent Riz Ahmed) speaks fluently about the "Church of McDonald's" and Western imperialism, and yet he's at the centre of a comfortable, suburban, upper working class family unit. Hassan (Arsher Ali) is an awkward, gangly virgin with a bone to pick with his Media Studies teacher. Barry (Nigel Lindsay, who some might remember playing a terrorist of a different creed in HBO's Rome) is white.

For all their misadventures, there's a genuine tenderness and loyalty between these "soldiers". This is a side of Morris we've rarely seen before – an emotional spine that raises the film far above what could have resembled a series of sketches or, worse, a reel of better outtakes. Perhaps this is the film's greatest success: bringing its director out of the satirical shadows and into the comedy spotlight, and proving there's a heart to go with that clever head.

In the UK, Chris Morris is famous for the very controversial "Brasseye" series, and he has taken that iconoclastic attitude to the big screen to help create this wonderful little film.

It's a crude yet intelligent satire on a group of young men who want to be martyrs for the Islamic Al-Qaeda in the UK. Rather than portray them as dark shadowy men, they are really just everyday bumblers and naive men. The frightening aspect is that despite the humour, they are aiming to mass murder which always is behind the scenes.

The film uses humour to demystify the self-styled jihadists and take away any sort of menacing notoriety and show them as the frightening bunglers that they are. The fear is when one group actually manages to carry out what they set out to do.

This film is worth watching. You will be rolling with laughter, but you will end the film with many thoughts on the questions raised also. It's simply another great bit of political satire, and I recommend it highly.

Four Lions may be a black comedy, but the subject matter is anything but, dealing with the real threat of self radicalized men who take it upon themselves to wage what they deem is a holy war against the infidels of their religion, capitalism and Western ideals, about the men who are frighteningly misguided in their beliefs which we may find absurd, but they holding it very dearly to their hearts, nevermind if it's actually the blind leading the blind.

Co-written and directed by Christopher Morris, the film follows the journey of a few friends and acquaintances brought together by Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a self-styled firebrand convert and Omar (Riz Ahmed) the unofficial leader who assemble like minded radicals to take on what they felt is a path of righteousness and a fast track to heaven, nevermind if for narrative purposes his recruitment tactics is questionably risky at best (not to mention funny, I did say it was a comedy). It's almost like a satire on the 101 basics on how one transforms from all talk to all action, going on trips to Pakistan to meet up with mujahedins or holy warriors in order to learn the ropes in becoming soldiers and tested in battle, to the assembling of explosives, deciding on a target and then executing it, complete with the quintessential video recordings to explain the rationale behind the deeds.

It parodies many of what you've seen and read in the news, and while you may dismiss it as making light of dead serious situations, here's where its brilliance emerged. From within the comedy that come fast and furious that you find yourself inevitably laughing at the clueless wannabes, there are moments of poignancy especially when you realize that the wannabes have gone way past the point of no return, and with the wheels of destruction set in motion, there's no turning back really. In a way it reflects upon how detection of the clandestine activities may sometimes be stranger than fiction, but it is usually missed opportunities, especially with the countless of screw ups that go undetected, that serve as the real threat to society with prejudices and discrimination at play.

Ultimately those who truly suffer are friends and especially family, and the story does not mince that impact even though most are centered around the closing credits in an epilogue. Family isn't far behind especially when time got devoted to focus on the ringleader's, that here's a man willing to sacrifice what's worldly for a calling so perceived higher than self and for the greater good. Not only those on the other side of the law get put in a spotlight, but how the authorities and politicians behave got their fair share of critique, though in a fashion of less being more.

Four Lions adopted the shaky cam throughout which in a way tried to mirror a documentary, and to some this may be tiring to watch since the camera bounces around and doesn't stay still for the most parts. This is perhaps the only aspect of the film that I disliked, though you'll soon find yourself tickled if you pay close attention to the dialogue which were thoroughly filled with wickedly funny lines. The trailer may have accidentally revealed the funnier, slapstick aspects of the film, but its wit was firmly found in the spoken words.

Riz Ahmed is as charismatic a ringleader as he can be, and Kayvan Novak plays Waj his less than intelligent friend and blind follower with a sense of sensitivity that will tug at your heart when Omar realizes what he had done, and you'll definitely feel something for the Waj character when you ponder over how many real world counterparts who exist in the real world, being all too trusting with their leaders in being lambs laid out for slaughter, conned with an ideal of a promise. Adeel Akhtar's Faisal the bomb maker will nearly always make you laugh at his naivety and sheer stupidity, being one of the characters that draw the most laughs besides Waj.

It's easy to lapse into stereotypes and branding a message of hate, but Four Lions is nothing of that sort. What it does is to make one sit up and take notice of the troubles that are plaguing our modern day society, where there are those who do not feel inclusive, and decide to take it upon themselves to address their grievances through the use of violence. It's seriousness hidden under the guise of comedy, and I dare say you'll get more out of this film than from whatever else that's screening this week. Highly recommended!

The film can be approached from two angles; as a comedy and as an important contemporary cultural text. As a comedy it succeeded beyond expectations. Part of the pleasure surely came from the spectacle of the event; a sold out screening with cast and crew present along with regional cultural references that resonated infectiously with many in the audience, but this can take nothing away from the many levels of comedy at work within this film. There were elements of overacted screwball comedy; there were underplayed facial expressions and reactions that added a wealth of character and personality to the comedy; further still, there were elaborately constructed situational set pieces. All these elements along with explosively dynamic dialogue that was well delivered combined to send the audience into tears of laughter.

In a separate issue to the comedy there was the cultural commentary, which is always going to draw attention when it is such a taboo subject as Jihad: a word that is often avoided at all costs. The film unapologetically offers a plethora of questions around motivation, meaning and justification which it never falls into the trap of giving patronizing, melodramatic answers to nor does it preach any solutions.

The many characters were all utilised to give different points of views and different perspectives; the main protagonist Omar (Riz Ahmed) was fully fleshed out, with the other characters used to offer differing ideas and obviously the above mentioned comic relief. Omar's brother for instance had such a minor part but raises questions around what he considers a true following of Islam, which he promotes as peaceful, but is then exposed as intrinsically sexist due to the way he practically locks his wife in a cupboard. That being said, Islam itself was to a large extent sidelined and the film much more overtly dealt with identification and senses of belonging for a demographic that has partial but not complete grips on the many angles of where its identity is created; this includes Barry (Nigel Lindsay), the Caucasian convert amongst the group.

Four Lions is easily funny enough to reach a very wide audience, where viewers will be left without answers and therefore forced to discuss these issues, which are too often brushed under the proverbial rug.

twitter - @destroyapathy

Like Charlie Chaplin's Hitler, Chris Morris' 'Four Lions' shows that no subject can escape comic scrutiny; humour always seems to find the ability to expose the ridiculous in otherwise appalling situations. This satirical black comedy vents its disgust at the pseudo-morality of suicide bombing, whilst managing to portray its terrorists with an affection that allows the audience an unexpected emotional attachment with these supposed figures of violence.

The film follows a terrorist cell of blundering, inept, and impossibly stupid would-be suicide bombers on their quest towards martyrdom – we follow them failing miserably in a Pakistan training camp, trying to run through sheep fields whilst carrying bags of explosives, attaching bombs to crows, all the time creating a chaotic 'blooper' reel of attempted martyrdom videos. These suicide bombers are not the feared assassins of popular imagination, but absurd and easily led dupes who encourage laughter and ridicule – and significantly, in the end, pity.

The comedy of 'Four Lions' lies in the power of its bathos: the film reduces the dreaded spectre of suicide bombing to a ludicrous pageant of ineptitude. It's a film with fast laughs and dim wit in abundance, an absurd 'How Not-To Guide' to martyrdom.

However, the audience cannot help but feel pity for the characters as their plot reaches its climax. There is a sad inevitability to the group's last moments together; despite the horror of what the bombers are planning, the audience has been lulled into sympathising with their situation. The sadness of the film comes with the audience's realisation that these characters are regular, likable, funny, naive people – they are not monsters in themselves, but made monstrous by their susceptibility to absurd, immoral teachings.

The lead character Omar's interactions with his wife and young son are painful in their twisted depiction of the ideal family unit. At one point Omar (played by Riz Ahmed) tells his son a bedtime story about 'Simba's Jihad'. It is a scene that is touching, funny and uncomfortable all at once, a reflection of our responses to the film as a whole.

'Four Lions' is provocative in its comic parody of an emotional subject, but there is never any sense that it wishes to be deliberately inflammatory. Instead, the story is told with warmth and sharp humour; it offers us a fine concoction of derision and sympathy, pulling at our affections whilst cutting the terrifying down to the clownish.

James Gill ------ Find more reviews, news and previews at www.singleadmission.co.uk