Why I love Riz Ahmed’s per­for­mance in Four Lions

On paper, the premise of Four Lions – an inept ter­ror­ist cell in Sheffield plans a sui­cide attack – sounds like the open­ing of a taste­less joke. Most of the Islam­ic extrem­ists depict­ed are punch­line-pro­duc­ing car­i­ca­tures who range from bum­bling to brash: Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) buys bot­tles of bleach a dozen at a time while dis­guis­ing him­self as a beard­ed woman; Bar­ry (Nigel Lind­say) itch­es to insti­gate the final jihad at what­ev­er cost nec­es­sary; and Has­san (Arsh­er Ali), the ​“Muja­hedeen mak­ing a scene”, pref­aces a bomb hoax with a rap of his own invention.

But then there is Omar, played with char­ac­ter­is­tic poise by Riz Ahmed, who fan­cies him­self as the leader of the group. Though he does make mis­takes of his own – in his hands, a mis­sile launch quite lit­er­al­ly back­fires – his rel­a­tive com­pe­tence sets him apart. While the oth­ers pro­vide the bel­ly laughs, Omar car­ries the film’s nar­ra­tive and the­mat­ic weight on his shoul­ders. His stern pres­ence acts as a reminder that, despite the many moments of black humour on dis­play, the sub­ject broached is a seri­ous one.

Of course, Omar’s rea­sons for keep­ing a straight face dif­fer from those of the view­er. For him, ter­ror­ism is not a taboo, but a duty. An ear­ly scene sees him give a moti­va­tion­al speech about what it means to be a ​“prop­er sol­dier”, to ​“hold a sword, touch the sky”. Else­where, he unleash­es scathing tirades and pep talks pep­pered with anti-West­ern put­downs. Ahmed deliv­ers such mono­logues with fire in his eyes – in these instances, Omar is pre­sent­ed as being in his ele­ment, over­come by both ambi­tion and rage.

This anger does not always bub­ble to the sur­face. Omar often exchanges ban­ter with a co-work­er and shares warm moments with his wife and son. A blunt act­ing per­for­mance would sep­a­rate the seem­ing­ly con­flict­ing sides of his char­ac­ter, as if to ask, in the style of a tabloid head­line, how a lov­ing fam­i­ly man could har­bour aspi­ra­tions to kill. In Ahmed’s sub­tly unset­tling inter­pre­ta­tion, though, every per­son­al­i­ty trait becomes con­nect­ed to his cen­tral mis­sion. Per­sonas are worn to suit a giv­en occa­sion, but all are under­pinned by the same steely resolve.

As a result, the behav­iour­al shifts appear not only believ­able, but also cal­lous­ly con­sid­ered. In this respect, they match the skill of Omar’s rhetoric. When speak­ing to his son, he adopts an air of pater­nal dig­ni­ty, wrap­ping pro­pa­gan­da up in a sto­ry about The Lion King. Lat­er, while tear­ing apart one of the group’s rash plans, he brings up the death of a rel­a­tive. Ahmed utters the line with delib­er­a­tion, strik­ing a som­bre tone that falls ambigu­ous­ly between sin­cer­i­ty and deceit. Even the view­er is being played, left uncer­tain where the façade ends and truth begins.

The pri­ma­ry tar­get of Omar’s emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion is his cousin, Waj (Kay­van Novak). A noto­ri­ous­ly gorm­less theme park fan, Waj is drawn in by Omar’s sug­ges­tion that life is like being ​“stuck in the queue at Alton Tow­ers”. Though the pair are close in age, Omar address­es Waj in a coax­ing, crafti­ly child­like man­ner, using pop­u­lar cul­ture ref­er­ences and fos­ter­ing a sense of cama­raderie in order to win him over. Omar repeat­ed­ly per­suades Waj to par­tic­i­pate in the planned attack, claim­ing that any seeds of doubt in his mind have been sown by the devil.

Only on two occa­sions does Omar’s deter­mi­na­tion waver. His mask first slips when group morale is at its low­est. After open­ly derid­ing Waj, he finds him­self unable to tease his broth­er, who he usu­al­ly delights in ril­ing up. Pass­ing him as he plays foot­ball with friends in a rainy park, Omar mut­ters that they look like ​“some­thing rub­bish”. His mur­mur is bare­ly intel­li­gi­ble, his stare vacant. Here, Ahmed gives the impres­sion of a man robbed of mean­ing, his sur­face scratched away to reveal not hero­ism, as he would hope, but vulnerability.

The oth­er instance comes in the film’s clos­ing scenes, with the group’s plan final­ly under­way. Only when Waj holes him­self up in a kebab shop, threat­en­ing to det­o­nate his bomb, does Omar become struck by over­due guilt. His pre­vi­ous­ly stead­fast con­vic­tion fades into some­thing clos­er to qui­et res­ig­na­tion – for once, he is pre­oc­cu­pied by some­thing oth­er than his own jihad. In these final min­utes, Ahmed’s facial expres­sions speak vol­umes: a heavy-lid­ded blink, a sky­ward flick of the eyes, a fur­row­ing of the brow, a strained attempt at a smile.

Despite bear­ing all the hall­marks of a con­tro­ver­sy-court­ing com­e­dy, Four Lions ends with sur­pris­ing pathos. Ahmed’s por­tray­al of Omar is instru­men­tal in ensur­ing that this change in mood suc­ceeds. His cal­cu­lat­ed charis­ma, main­tained for most of the run­ning time, illus­trates how effec­tive­ly indi­vid­u­als can be groomed into rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion. When his steely resolve breaks at the film’s dénoue­ment, over­shad­owed by guilt about his pri­or manip­u­la­tions, it encour­ages view­ers to recog­nise the tragedy not only of inno­cent vic­tims, but also – more con­tentious­ly – of mis­guid­ed perpetrators.