Tuesday 25th May 2010

As a big fan of the satirist Chris Morris I was looking forward to seeing his debut as a film director in the new comedy Four Lions last week. However, I left the cinema feeling slightly dissatisfied.
Four Lions tackles the controversial subject of suicide bombers, following the lives of a group British born Muslim men in Sheffield intent on making a statement by killing innocent people. Sure, it doesn't sound like a comedy, but to their credit Morris and his writers, Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, give us a few laughs. Its the characters that make this film worth seeing, as the "Lions" are so hapless and their actions of pure stupidity provide the comedy element. For example, the two lead men of the group Barry and Omar are entangled in a bitter power struggle and argue endlessly over what their target should be. One confrontation over bombing a mosque ends with Barry punching himself to justify it.
Perhaps Morris got his inspiration for this film from the failed Exeter bomber, described by many as the world's worst suicide bomber. If Four Lions was based on a true story, then surely these guys would take that title.
I enjoyed parts of Four Lions, but I think my dissatisfaction came from the anti-climatic ending, which left me asking "is that really the end".
Maybe I was disappointed as Morris has previously set himself some very high standards which this time he couldn't quite live up to. For those of you not familiar his other work, Morris created Brass Eye in the 1990s, arguably the greatest piece of satirical television ever. Television presenters, musicians and politicians were stitched up by being roped in to talk about cutting edge subjects such as drugs and paedophilia, but with some blatant inaccurate facts. In one episode Morris managed to convince a whole host of public fugures, including Rolf Harris, Noel Edmonds and David Amess MP to convince youngsters not to take a made up drug called CAKE.
One particular episode caused such outrage that it received over 2000 complaints. I was expecting a similar outburst questioning moral decency over Four Lions, but the likes of the Daily Mail have been surprisingly tame this time.
Morris has defended making a comedy on such a controversial subject, comparing Four Lions to Dad's Army, by showing terrorists as "scary but also ridiculous" in the same way the popular BBC sitcom did to Nazis.
Four Lions might not have quite lived up to the great expectations I had of it, but as long as you're not easily offended its still worth seeing.