The trailer for Chris Morris’s Jihadi comedy “Four Lions” went up today (the film has already shown at Sundance). Guardian review also attached below.
Chris Morris is still the most incendiary figure working in the British entertainment industry. Even if you have not read reports of Four Lions’ premiere at Sundance, it should come as no surprise that Morris – the man behind surreal short film My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, and the TV series Nathan Barley, has taken on arguably the most bad-taste subject imaginable: a cell of homegrown jihadi bombers, feverishly plotting martyrdom from terrace houses in Doncaster.
The title is offered up with sledgehammer irony: our crew of wannabe killers are as fervent as football fans, and at one point — in a parody of the 7/7 tube bombers’ group hug caught on a station surveillance camera — cuddle up and chant motivational phrases.
But of course it’s as contrary an idea as everything else Morris sets up: these are anti-patriots of the most unmistakable kind. Added to which, there are actually five of them. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is the intense, coiled-spring leader, Fessel (Adeel Akhtar) his clueless, dozy lieutenant; Waj (Kayvan Novak), an easily confused bruiser; harmless-looking Hassan (Arsher Ali), a late sub when one of the others enters heaven a little earlier than planned; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), — the most bizarre of all the “lions” — a Caucasian convert to Islam with a streak of ferocious invective and penchant for little hats.