Four Lions

(United Kingdom, 2010, 101 mins)

Executive Producers: Carole Baraton, Peter Carlton, Will Clarke, Caroline Leddy, Angus Aynsley, Mark Findlay, Alex Marshall
Producers: Mark Herbert, Derrin Schlesinger
Screenwriters: Christopher Morris, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain
Cinematographer: Lol Crawley
Editor: Billy Sneddon
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Arsher Ali, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar

Celebrated British satirist Christopher Morris has never been one to shy away from taboo subjects. For nearly twenty years, his has been the most biting voice on British radio and television, where he has skewered untouchable topics that would make South Park blush. Now, for his feature film debut, he has done the seemingly impossible. He’s made an audacious, laugh-out-loud comedy about terrorism.

After several years researching homegrown British extremists, Morris has concocted this tale set in a cell of wannabe jihadists. Our “hero” is Omar, a family man and mall security guard who, along with three other radicalized cohorts, decides to become a martyr. It turns out they are better bumblers than bombers, and most of their plots amount to little more than exploding crows and getting kicked out of al-Qaida training camps. Then they train their sites on the London Marathon…

Four Lions runs an amazing gamut of comedy, including everything from slapstick to farce to sitcom set-ups, but its most subversive moments are among the quietest, when the obvious jokes fall way, leaving behind the awful absurdity of Omar’s extreme ideology.

Doug Jones

In attendance: Kayvan.

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