Four Lions

In his mis­sion state­ment for Four Lions, Chris Mor­ris claims that ​‘ter­ror­ism is about ide­ol­o­gy, but it’s also about berks.’ The king of pranksters forged the blue­print that gave the world Borat, but since the crit­i­cal suc­cess of cult shows like The Day Today he’s pre­ferred to keep a low­er per­son­al pro­file, pulling the strings behind the cam­era. There are no taboos for Mor­ris, as he proved with a Brass Eye spe­cial on pae­dophil­ia that shocked the nation. But how far is too far? Are there things we shouldn’t laugh at?

In Four Lions Mor­ris aims his crosshairs at a group of rad­i­calised young Mus­lims in Sheffield plan­ning ​‘cos­mic war’ from a bed­sit. Fol­low­ing three years of research, the film­mak­er has come to the con­clu­sion that many ter­ror­ist cells in the UK approach the con­cept of plan­ning an attack with the men­tal­i­ty of a stag week­end – and Four Lions offers humour to match.

The script zings about as if Mor­ris and fel­low writ­ers Jesse Arm­strong and Sam Bain (cre­ators of Peep Show) are try­ing to out­do one anoth­er with enjoy­able yet banal one-lin­ers. This will­ing­ness to bend satire into gag point-scor­ing is reduc­tive. And the sight of the intre­pid lions with explo­sives strapped to fan­cy dress cos­tumes (the Hon­ey Mon­ster, a Teenage Mutant Nin­ja Tur­tle) has all the sub­tle­ty of a sledgehammer.

There’s no doubt­ing the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mances, but Riz Ahmed’s inten­si­ty as the dis­il­lu­sioned Omar – head­ing a mot­ley crew of extrem­ists includ­ing Islam­ic con­vert Bar­ry (Nigel Lind­say) and Fes­sal (Adeel Akhtar), who’s con­vinced he can train crows to fly bomb­ing mis­sions – is fur­ther under­mined by a train­ing camp scene played for slap­stick laughs. What we’re left with is a Spinal Tap for terrorism.

Mor­ris has joked about his fear of a fat­wa, but the only back­lash will come from those who feel that he’s failed to hit the tar­get with a patchy black com­e­dy that doesn’t live up to the promise of provoca­tive satire, one that quick­ly gives way to farce. You can’t help feel­ing that Four Lions is an intel­lec­tu­al exer­cise in chal­leng­ing polit­i­cal correctness.