The Sprout

Flick Flak: Four Lions

Posted by neilramsden from Cardiff - Published on 18/05/2010 at 19:24
1 comments » - Tagged as Culture, Movies, Topical

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This film is well known at the moment for being controversial.

On the day of its release, some relatives of the victims of the 7/7 bombings in London called for a boycott on the film, because they felt it went beyond satire and parody and was instead seeking to cash in on the actual events of July 2005. I understand where these people are coming from: the film is uncomfortably close to real events.

But then, films directly about 9/11 have been made, and these were clearly not attempts to cash in. The film has been defended, saying that it ridicules the aims of terrorists, and shows them to be incompetent, narcissistic and irreligious (author Jamie Bartlett quoted on the BBC website), and in doing so can 'dent the brand' that is al-Qaeda.

I do not really agree that it ridicules the aims of terrorists, but the second part of the above sentence may well be true; perhaps by showing British Muslims an outside view of extremist beliefs the film could do something to counter such ideas. In the end, I do not really think the film is too controversial.

A while ago I commented that Kick Ass had caused some upset, but a few weeks later it has been forgotten, and I imagine the same will happen with Four Lions. Thus I prefer to judge the film on its quality and the issues it raises, rather than surrounding controversy (if indeed the two can be separated).

This is a very tricky film to review. First off, I found it very funny, and I have heard some people say it is not. My girlfriend does not like either Chris Morris' brand of humour (Brass Eye, The Day Today) or Peep Show (whose writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong wrote the script for Four Lions), yet she was still giggling away with me.

Like Peep Show the humour mostly derives from ridiculous conversations, often between Omar, the more intelligent of the aspiring suicide bombers, and one of the other less bright guys. Their incompetence is a goldmine of laughs, and I felt that whenever the film was aiming to be funny it was hitting the mark. However the film was also more thought provoking than I was expecting, and I have great respect for the complex issues it raises in the minds of the audience.

For me the most confusing thing about the film was how to feel about the main characters, especially Omar. He is really likeable; he is witty and funny, loving to his wife and son and a good friend (kind of). The complication for the audience is that while his dedication to his beliefs is admirable, his beliefs are completely alien and horrific to us. This is awkward given his apparent rationality and intelligence, and is made worse through his efforts to persuade his slow friend Waj (Kayvan Novak, most famous as the Fonejacker (!)), and even his young son, that martyrdom and killing enemies of Islam is noble and proper.

Like the film as a whole, the scene where Omar describes martyrdom to his young son via an adapted version of The Lion King is both funny and tragic. I was expecting the story to take the direction of Omar slowly 'coming to his senses', but Chris Morris has no such easy route in mind. Without giving the plot away, the ending is very effective, and additional scenes while the credits roll act as a nice epilogue.

I walked away deep in thought about the film, which I take to always be a good sign of a film's quality!

The acting in the film is all spot on, entirely believable, and the main characters are all acted very well. Riz Ahmed, who I last saw in Charlie Brooker's Big Brother-themed zombie series Dead Set, portrayed the character of Omar brilliantly, as noted above, providing the film with its core moral ambiguity.

Occasionally more well-known comedic actors pop up in small roles, like Alex Macqueen (from The Thick of It, and The Inbetweeners) and Julia Davis (of Nighty Night and Gavin and Stacey fame), but the film is more than carried by the relatively lesser known leads. Their performances, combined with an almost documentary style of filming, makes for a thoroughly believable film.

So, hopefully I haven't taken a very funny film and written a very serious and dull review about it! Four Lions is a pretty complete package: funny, thought-provoking (uncomfortably so in places) and well put together by all concerned. Hopefully Chris Morris can join Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant in embarking on a career of directing quality British comedies!

Please, if anyone has any opinions they want to share, comment!