A handful of young men set out to take on the decadent West but are more of a threat to themselves than anyone else in this black comedy from the creator of Brass Eye, Chris Morris. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a devout Muslim living in the United Kingdom who has decided to form a terrorist cell to bring forth a jihad against a culture he believes is dominated by the sinful and ignorant. However, Omar isn't much of leader, and he's assembled an unimpressive team of fellow terrorists, among them Waj (Kayvan Novak), who lacks the brainpower to come up with ideas or direction on his own; Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), who is shy and doesn't have much to say; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a recent convert to Islam who tries to make up for his lack of practical knowledge with fierce passion. As Omar and his comrades debate both doctrine and methods, they ponder such notions as using birds as explosive devices, creating video communiqués with a hip-hop flavor, and attacking mosques in an effort to provoke non-violent Muslims. But are Omar and his partners a legitimate threat to the safety of Great Britain, or just four half-bright twenty-somethings with more bluster than imagination?
Chris Morris' Four Lions is a funny, thrilling comedy that illuminates modern jihadism through the prism of farce. It understands jihadists as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. What "This Is Spinal Tap" did for heavy metal and "Dr Strangelove" the Cold War, Four Lions does for the modern face of terrorism.
Cert 15
