Four Lions Review

“Fuck mini baby bells” might just be my favourite line in a film so far this year. It comes from dim witted, would be terrorist Waj, in response to an anti-Western rant from his brother Omar justifying their particular Jihad. It’s one of many brilliant lines from writer/director Chris Morris in this somewhat scattershot but funny and, at times, moving tale of the eponymous four lions' attempt to martyr themselves by blowing up the London marathon.

That’s basically it for story. Omar and Waj travel to Pakistan for training. Meanwhile convert Barry recruits rapper Hassan to the cause and nervous Fessel worries over making the bombs and starring in the obligatory homemade video with a box over his head to preserve his identity. On the downside, Four Lions feels like it belongs more on TV than in a cinema. Scenes don’t feel like they build upon each other to form narrative as much as they come and go as funny, engaging, stand alone segments. In fact they feel less like scenes and more like individual sketches, a product perhaps of Morris’ background and that of his writing partners Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, most famous for writing Peep Show. At a certain point this started to get to me and I found my interest waning. This also means that the finale could come at any time because there isn’t much of a sense of narrative build. We could get our protagonists to London now, half an hour ago or not for another hour; let’s just see what happens. On top of that, the gags come thick and fast and I personally found that there were as many that missed the mark as hit. In particular, I simply didn’t believe the character of Waj. Moments like him mistaking chickens for rabbits and asking who was on the phone after Omar makes the telephone gesture with his hands and talks into it while making a speech are big, obvious gags, and indeed had many people in the audience I saw it with laughing hysterically. This is a character type that is very recognisable from television sitcoms. Going back to Malary in Family Ties all the way through to Joey in Friends via Dougal in Father Ted, many sitcoms use slow, stupid, dim-witted characters to provide much of the humour with their ineptitude. The problem for me is that this is a film, not a sitcom, and, on the big screen, I found the character unbelievable and the humour obviously scripted rather than coming naturally from the situations and characters. Because all of the humour that works does come from the characters and situations, it just makes this all the more apparent. Also, much of the mock arguing and pretend rambling suffered from this same problem; it felt staged and scripted and I didn’t quite believe it. I would have been interested to see what Morris as writer would have done with a more experienced film director guiding the material. Also, given Morris’ background, particularly thinking about Brass Eye, I was actually expecting the film to go closer to the bone. Having made the decision to tackle this material, the film ends up playing it surprisingly safe.

But this is to get the negatives out of the way so as to concentrate on the positives. Four Lions is generally well written and very well acted, particularly by its lead Riz Ahmed as the only marginally less hapless Omar leading the quartet towards their destiny. Omar is radicalised yet also Westernised, his slightly more free form Islam contrasting with the rigidity of that of his brother Ahmed who believes in Islam at its most Old Testament (to mix my religions) but is utterly opposed to the violence his brother espouses. This makes for a really interesting juxtaposition between a character steeped in his religion, with all the negatives (from our perspective) that goes along with this, particularly in the treatment of women, but who is ultimately peaceful and a character who has probably never read the Qur’an all the way through and is, on the surface, more “acceptable” (again, from a Western perspective) but has latched onto a popularised, corrupted misinterpretation of the faith and is capable of killing innocent people as a result. It’s also interesting how all the references of the would be Jihadists are Western, to the point where a character at the Pakistani training camp refers to Waj and Omar as being like Mr Bean, Rambo and James Bond. Hassan reveres Tupac but is later outed as a Maroon 5 fan. This goes alongside numerous anti western rants and tirades. It’s a subtle and very deliberate contradiction in the writing of the characters that reveals the absurdity of their ill informed opinions and actions. The film is laugh out loud funny and its humour ranges from the witty to the slapstick, the death of one character at the hands of the guys’ own bombs branded as martyrdom because he also happened to kill a sheep for example. The police and other security forces emerge as every bit as useless as the cell they are chasing and this results in one of the film’s funniest moments when two snipers, under orders to take out the terrorists dressed up as fun runners, can’t distinguish between a Wookie and the Honey Monster and engage in an extended argument about the differences between the two over their radios.

The film also has a couple of very striking and moving scenes, Omar saying goodbye to his wife before setting off to blow himself up, and explaining the notion of suicide bombing to his young son through use of The Lion King are the two standouts. The latter reminded me of that horrible yet brilliant and compelling scene in Happiness when paedophile Dylan Baker explains his proclivities to his son who is upset that his Dad doesn’t want him. Four Lions doesn’t quite push its scene that far but it’s cut from the same cloth and resonates amidst the mayhem of much of the rest of the film. That mayhem, one would hope, won’t distract audiences from the very serious nature of the material and the importance of discussing the topic. Four Lions is satirical, pointed, intelligent and funny. Everything you’d expect from the man who made Phil Collins talk about “nonce sense.”

And yes this review is weeks late, I know. What can I say? I've been busy enjoying the sunshine!

7/10