FOUR LIONS(15)
D: Chris Morris
Optimum/Drafthouse/Film4/Wild Bunch/Warp (Mark Herbert &
Derrin Schlesinger)
UK 🇬🇧 2010
97 mins
Comedy
W: Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong & Sam Bain
DP: Lol Crawley
Ed: Billy Sneddon
Riz Ahmed (Omar), Kayvan Novak (Waj), Nigel Lindsay (Barry),
Adeel Akhtar (Faisal), Arsher Ali (Hassan)
Four Lions is a satirical comedy which tackles a very
politically-charged and fractious subject, that of Islamic extremism in both the UK and in the Middle East, and though it pokes fun and ridicules suicide bombers, the non-serious approach to the
material also makes the film a little bit pointless.
The story follows four British Muslims who become so engaged
in their religious beliefs that they plan to rage terror on the streets of Britain, culminating in a bungled attack at the London Marathon.
Admittedly, the performances of the four incompetent
terrorists are good, and there are one or two amusing moments, but it doesn't provide any real belly laughs and treads quite carefully so not to offend anyone and ultimately falls between two
stools of being both politically correct and not.
Certainly worth a watch, but nowhere near as good as it could
have been.
6/10