Director: Christopher Morris
Writer: Christopher Morris, Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong (Screenplay)
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Arsher Ali, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar, Julia Davis, Craig Parkinson
Plot: Four incompetent British jihadists set out to train for and commit an act of terror.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Great Funny Comedy
Story: Four Lions starts as we meet four British Muslims working simple jobs in England, Omar (Ahmed), Barry (Lindsay), Waj (Novak) and Faisal (Akhtar) who want to going be Jihadists. Omar and Waj get the call to travel to Pakistan to go through the training with Barry keeping up the fight back in the UK recruiting Hassan (Ali).
When the group reunite, they plan their own terrorist attack in the UK but as things continue to go wrong with Barry’s extreme behaviour, while Omar wanting to be more calculated with his attack. When they finally put their difference behind them the group look to plan their attack with of course comical consequences.
Thoughts on Four Lions
Characters/Performance – Omar is the calm leader who has the plan down perfectly and tries to do the right thing for his friend, Waj is the simple-minded character who is easily led astray by Barry and Omar. Barry is the true British extremist who enjoys the terrorist idea and wants to hurt as many people as he can, he is the true bad example of this whole film. we get to see the comic side of these hopeless characters who want to be terrorists.
Performance wise Riz Ahmed is brilliant in this role with Nigel Lindasy and Kayvan Novak being equally as entertaining through the whole film. I think the whole cast do a great job at how we can see the nativity behind the jihadists extremists.
Story – The story shows us how naïve jihadists believe they can follow others into the terrorist’s idea when they are clearly just clueless about the whole situation. This is an advert about how people can be led astray by these extremist’s beliefs but never understand the true meaning of everything they are doing. The story is mostly parody which works all so well for the film.
Comedy/Crime – We have laughs from start to finish in this film while the crime terrorist attack is being planned.
Settings – The settings show how these men can come from everyday background to be the terrorists, we see whole London can be a target with the links to escape or find trapped.
Special Effects – The special effects are only used in small places but they all work well for the film.
Final Thoughts – When it comes to comedy this is by far one of the best you will see and I think everyone could enjoy even with a sensitive subject.
Overall: A must watch for all the comedy fans out there.
Rating
