Four Lions (Saturday, November 6, 2010) (146)

Four Lions is a movie that shouldn't be funny because of the subject matter, but is actually hilarious and might be the best comedy of the year. The story is about a group of four radical Muslim guys in Northern England who want to get involved in the greater jihadi movement. The only problem is that they're totally the gang that couldn't shoot straight. At one point when they go to Pakistan to train with some Al Qaeda outfit there, they are the bottom of their class and basically sent back home. The finale involves a very funny scene with the guys running a marathon in silly costumes... strapped with explosives inside.

As they deal with their fight for meaning in their lives, they also enjoy all the trappings of the West, like football (soccer), women, speaking English and not Arabic or Urdu and living in a cushy Western country. Omar, their de facto leader, is a totally nice and wonderful guy who works as a security surveillance guard for a department store. His friends at work are white and typically blue-collar English people. He's loved by all and keeps his mouth shut about his anti-western feelings.

I love the silliness of the film and the frankness with which it deals with this issue. Maybe some would find it disrespectful, but I love that sometimes we can laugh at jihad (oy vey). Not every terrorist is a genius, probably. I'd bet some are just fools who screw everything up they touch (can you say Richard Reid, the shoe bomber or Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber...?!). And that's the point. It was sorta funny that a guy tried to blow up a plane with explosives in his crotch - but can't get the explosion to go off. Sure it's tragic and scary and terrible, but seen from the other side of the same coin, it's really silly and funny.

I particularly like how unflinching and straightforward the film is. The bumbling group of idiots is at times racist, anti-Semitic, rude and violent, but they're treated as very matter-of-fact. Just when you think director Christopher Morris and co-writers Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Simon Blackwell are going to flinch and pull up short of the big pay-off, they don't. Well done to them for sticking with the joke to the very end!

Stars: 3 of 4