Bob and Justin's Mad Movie Blog

My name is Bob. My friend Justin and I are aspiring filmmakers and we have pretty similar tastes in movies. This will include our take on what's going on in film and television today as well as updating you on the status of our own work.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Four Lions

For a long time I have felt that if done properly comedy can be mined from most anything. It can even be found in war ("Dr. Strangelove," "In the Loop") but is there any way that we can laugh at terrorism? Writer-director Chris Morris (he played Denholm on "The IT Crowd") thought he could. The result is a general failure but it's certainly an interesting one.
Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a loving husband and father who enjoys Puffin Party and the company of his friends. He also happens to be an aspiring jihadist who regularly meets with Barry (Nigel Lindsay), Waj (Kayvan Novak), and Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), where they shoot video messages and discuss potential bombing targets. Their videos never go as well as Omar would hope but his spirits are lifted when he and Waj are called to Pakistan for "training." After a mishap with a missile, they're sent back home to London with their tails between their legs. Omar feels that they can still strike a blow for jihad on their own however and the "four lions" start plotting once more.
Any filmmaker setting out to make a satire is seriously challenging him or herself. I can't imagine throwing down a bigger challenge, certainly in 2010, than trying to satirize terrorism. How do you make radical terrorists the center of a comedy? Well as one would expect, with the exception of Omar, they are presented as buffoons who have no idea what they are doing. Really Omar doesn't know what he's doing either but compared to his associates he's a certified genius. The problem with the comedy of "Four Lions" is that the results of the characters' actions are far too real to be funny. Even more than their actions though, it's their thought process that is the most terrifying. Early in the film I told myself, "I can only hope that most jihadists are this inept and moronic," but by the end it seemed that their intelligence really doesn't matter. After all, people with hateful ideologies and explosives are dangerous regardless of IQ.
*So now I'm going to be a little more analytical than normal. I usually don't like to give away major plotpoints or get too into detail because I feel like a viewer should be able to go in fairly fresh, but I just have a lot of thoughts here that I want to explore.*
Now the realization that I came to is most likely what Morris was intending but if he was then I really don't know why he thought it was funny. Comedy doesn't work when it's forced and this movie shows that's doubly true with dark comedy. Still, it's a movie that gets into your head and stays there, if for no other reason it features the most terrifying film moment in recent memory. It is completely unassuming and quiet which only makes it all the more frightening. The scene is about a half hour until the movie's end. Omar is sitting in his kitchen late at night talking with his wife Sophia (Preeya Kalidas) about some trouble he's been having with the gang. He's feeling very downtrodden when his young son comes in to help cheer him up. The three of them discuss Omar's prospects of becoming a suicide bomber as though he's talking about preparing for the bar exam or becoming a bus driver. There's an acceptance of this mindset that it's just something they do and that it's perfectly normal.
The thing about this scene is that it's really the key to the whole movie. In the days since seeing it I still don't know what Morris's point of view is. The first could be that he trusts the audience to see beneath the surface and realize how horrifying the thought of this really going on in homes such as this one is. If that's what he's doing than it's a really brilliant and subtle moment that shows a director giving his audience credit. The second possibility though is that Morris wants us to sympathize with Omar. Clearly, Morris believes Omar to be misguided, but if this second possibility is true then he's attempting to show us the humanity of someone intending to indiscriminately murder innocent people.
For Omar and his family it's their reality and while I can't understand their mindset and never could, the idea of this scene being presented sort of from their point of view is interesting and in a way, quite bold. That doesn't mean I think the movie is condoning what Omar's planning to do. Far from it and obviously, neither do I. I say that it's interesting and bold because without commenting on what Omar is doing or condemning it, the reality of his plans and what his son is sure to become are positively chilling.
"Four Lions" doesn't work as a comedy. That said, it's quite thought provoking and has a single scene so memorable that I just dedicated two and a half fairly long paragraphs to it. I definitely wouldn't say that I liked the film but clearly, it leaves an impression. I won't bother giving this a score out of 10 because well, I just don't know what I would give it. If you are interested in seeing it you may have some trouble finding it. In Seattle it's playing at the Varsity Theater. If you live elsewhere then good luck finding it.

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