This rather wonderfully insane movie is about 5 bumbling idiotic Moslem would-be terrorists, with a combined IQ of about 100, who decide that they want to be martyrs for the ‘Cause.’ They can’t agree as to exactly what that is or indeed how they should go about it, but they are intent on making a ‘plan’. Living in a working-class town in the North of the UK, 4 of them are Pakistanis by birth but it is the redheaded Brit Moslem convert who is the most fanatical of them all. He wants to blow up a Mosque to radicalize Muslim moderates, and the irony of the fact that he is a westerner is totally lost on him. As are so many other things.
They settle instead to dress up in outlandish clown costumes to run in the London Marathon because one of the dim-wits has the idea that blowing up the runners in this high-profile event would get them the attention they want. When one of them gets locked in a Kebab Shop en-route and ends up taking hostages, he admits to the Police Negotiator that aside from the fact that he is looking forward to arriving in heaven smiling after blowing himself up, that he has no other plans or demands.
This is probably the very first jihad terrorist comedy ever! When we originally viewed it at Sundance, we simply could not stop laughing. It has some incredulously hilarious scenes that had us bellowing out loud. It is a daring, extremely black comedy of very dubious taste, unquestionably shocking, but it is blissfully funny. Four Lions is an inspired and risky movie and it took the sheer audacity of the talented satirist Chris Morris (Brass Tacks’, ‘I’m Alan Partridge’) who directed and co-wrote to bring this to our Screens. You’ll either love the results of his labour, or hate it.
It was in a few movie theaters but for far too short a time but it is now out on DVD/VOD and so deserves to be seen.
★★★★★★★★
Labels: 2010, black comedy, British, drama, Sundance
