Notorious for his slapstick approach to paedophilia and mockery of low-key celebrities, Morris has tapped in to delicate subject matter. What is most interesting, however, is the level of research that has gone into it.
In the dead of night, a 17-year-old jihadi asked if the 600 kilos of fertiliser locked in the shed was for the gardening. 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, spent two hours picking an outfit that wouldn’t make him look fat on camera.
One of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was teased by his fellows for pissing too loudly; he blamed Jewish people for making thin bathroom doors.
We are too easily blind to the human dimensions of terrorism. In the face of terror, we either shit a brick or we laugh, albeit nervously. If a small group of young, fired up blokes are set one objective, without any corporeal guidance, the turd is destined for the fan.
Add radical religious fundamentalism to the equation and 9 times out of 10 you’ve got an office plastered in shit, blood and guts.
It seems that Chris Morris has found a niche in the film-making market. Four Lions combines situational humour with a controversial topic. What did we expect?
After three years of investigating, interviewing terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims, Morris has exposed some raw and genuinely comical elements to religious fundamentalism.
“People go to training camps in the wrong clothes, volunteer for the mujahedeen and get told to go home and ‘do the knitting….’ They talk about who is cooler – bin Laden or Johnny Depp.”
The more he dug, the more Morris’ preconceptions of Islamic terrorism were flipped. “The unfathomable world of extremism seemed to contain elements of farce.” It is from these elements that Four Lions draws its inspiration.
A group of young, jihadi Muslims devise a plan to achieve martyrdom and have their names reverberate across the world. However, none of them have any experience in clandestine operations.
Whilst one tries his luck at training crows to fly bombs into buildings, another is convinced that blowing up a mosque could be the trigger to full-scale holy war. We feel neither compassion nor abhorrence toward the characters and their objective.
Instead we are presented with a narrative that Sky News can’t portray: where jihadists are human beings, prone to misjudgements and second thoughts.
For the Chris Morris fans out there, Four Lions does not compete with the humour of Brass Eye or The Day Today.
Although one would expect it to what with the issues it addresses and the crew that put it together. Writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong have collaborated before with their work on Smack the Pony and Peep Show. Producer Derrin Schlesinger worked with Morris on cult comedy Nathan Barley.
Their styles of humour can be detected but the satirical wit just isn’t there. Maybe it isn’t meant to be. Issues of racism and religious mockery inhibit the degree to which terrorism can be made ‘funny.’ For obvious reasons, Morris avoids dangerous territory.
The human side to Islamic fundamentalism also casts a sinister shadow over the film’s narrative. We cannot avoid the fact that young individuals, committed to a fanatic creed, seek salvation at the expense of others’ lives.
Four Lions shouldn’t be missed. The acting is terrific and the script well-written. “We’re trying to make you laugh – to entertain – to surprise – to move even.” Morris intended to open our minds to the multifaceted world that is religious extremism.
It’s original, funny, and it makes some poignant statements about life and the relationships within it.