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Rizwan Ahmed, Arsher Ali, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar ... see more see more... , Benedict Cumberbatch , Julia Davis , Craig Parkinson , Preeya Kalidas , Wasim Zakir , Mohammad Aqil

A handful of young men set out to take on the decadent West but are more of a threat to themselves than anyone else in this black comedy from director Chris Morris. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a devout Muslim... read more read more... living in the United Kingdom who has decided to form a terrorist cell to bring forth a jihad against a culture he believes is dominated by the sinful and ignorant. However, Omar isn't much of leader, and he's assembled an unimpressive team of fellow terrorists, among them Waj (Kayvan Novak), who lacks the brainpower to come up with ideas or direction on his own; Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), who is shy and doesn't have much to say; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a recent convert to Islam who tries to make up for his lack of practical knowledge with fierce passion. As Omar and his comrades debate both doctrine and methods, they ponder such notions as using birds as explosive devices, creating video communiqués with a hip-hop flavor, and attacking mosques in an effort to provoke nonviolent Muslims. But are Omar and his partners a legitimate threat to the safety of Great Britain, or just four half-bright twentysomethings with more bluster than imagination? Four Lions received its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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123 critics

R, 1 hr. 42 min.

Directed by: Christopher Morris

Release Date: November 5, 2010

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DVD Release Date: March 8, 2011

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Flixster Reviews (2,145)

  • itsjustme2004
    May 22, 2012
    itsjustme2004
    I could only make it half way through this...I do NOT get where the humor was in this. Not for me, obviously.
  • scottgreen96
    March 24, 2012
    scottgreen96
    So many memorable lines and actions, it just naturally makes you laugh and is great to watch over and over... and over...
  • fb1378820053
    February 16, 2012
    fb1378820053
    Great British Comedy about Five wannabee muslims living in the UK. The acting is solid and is hillarious from start to finish.
  • aquateen2
    December 29, 2011
    aquateen2
    The premise of the film could have gone badly wrong in any other directors hands but talented comic writer Chris Morris has created a very smart film thats aware of itself and filled with quotable lines and quality black humour. But the real reason Four Lions is complex and gripp... read moreing is how it crafts humour and the depressing true story it shows us extremely well put together.
  • mumby1988
    December 10, 2011
    mumby1988
    Throughout his career on radio and TV, Chris Morris has proved his calibre not merely as a comedy writer and performer, but as a bristling and savagely intelligent commentator on current affairs. Like Peter Cook at his very best, he combines an urbane demeanour with a ruthlessly ... read moreacerbic eye, delivering comedy of extraordinary craft and attention to detail. Four Lions, his first venture into feature filmmaking, continues his fantastic run of form, being one of the year's best films and one of the best black comedies of the last two decades.

    The comparison between Morris and Cook is not mere hyperbole. For all their reputations as rebels, and occasionally uncouth ones, there is a sparkling intelligence running throughout their work, so that even at their weakest they always feel on a different plane to everybody else. From the "good AIDS/ bad AIDS" conversations in Brass Eye to the darker moments of The Day Today, Morris has continually caught audiences between wincing and laughing hysterically, between revelling in the absurdity of life and being openly shaken by reality.

    But despite this rich pedigree, there is no sense in Four Lions of Morris re-treading old ground, in the tradition of TV performers who translate to the big screen. The only vague character similarity comes in Omar's security guard friend; his opening monologue about marathons and running distances is a distant cousin of Steve Coogan's pool attendant in The Day Today, who insists after an accident that, year after year, "no-one died". Neither is it the case that Four Lions feels televisual; Morris' comedy has never felt constricted by the limits of a given medium, and he makes the transition to cinema pretty effortlessly.

    Being a British comedy, there are moments in Four Lions which feature or heavily rely on big, broad sight gags. These are the kinds of laughs which populate the trailers, since they are perceived by marketers as bringing in a mainstream audience who do not follow either politics or Morris' career so closely. That's not to say that Morris put them in specifically to sell the film; while they don't reach the heights of the satirical and verbal comedy, they are executed in the best possible way. There is quite a bit of pleasure to be had from watching someone firing a grenade launcher the wrong way, or blowing up crows, or running awkwardly with hydrogen peroxide stashed under their arms.

    Had the use of such gags been more prolific, you could easily accuse Four Lions of exploiting its subject matter, barely scratching the surface in search of a cheap, mean-spirited laugh. But as the film moves on, all suggestions or hints of Carry on Bombing go out the window, as we grow in our relationship with the characters and view their actions in a more serious or pathos-ridden light.

    A key indicator of this is the sight of one of the bombers running towards the house with the explosives - he successfully mounts a wall, only to trip over a sheep and explodes before our very eyes. Whereas in previous scenes this would have induced a belly laugh, instead we sit there in shock, not quite believing what we have just seen. Morris has the confidence to keep the boundary between comedy and tragedy completely blurred; he doesn't feel the need to constantly get a laugh if a laugh is not what is needed at a given moment.

    Four Lions is an unusual comedy insofar as laughter or hilarity is not always the natural reaction which it produces. It sits in the company of Kind Hearts and Coronets or Dr. Strangelove, in which the overwhelming desire to laugh at the absurd or outrageous situations is balanced by an extraordinary sense of sadness or fear towards the characters. The final act of Four Lions, in which the four men decide to bomb the London Marathon, is up there with Charlie Chaplin's work in The Kid, or Buster Keaton at his most melancholic. Rather than lurch between laughing and lecturing, Morris invites us to recognise the sad and pitiful absurdity of what these four men are doing. While the four are all in some way stupid, disorganised and conflicted men, the film does not belittle them; it humanises them, allowing us to weep for their fate while laughing scornfully at the ideas which drove them to said fate.

    This marriage of tragedy and comedy is indicative of Morris' intentions as a comedian. Despite his uncanny ability to make people laugh, Morris has always had some form of serious intention behind his work, whether it's questioning stereotypes or approaching a controversial subject in a manner which cuts through all the hysteria and hyperbole of modern media. With Four Lions he has created a comedy which generates huge laughs in places while also raising all the difficult questions about the origins of terrorism in Britain, and if and how it can be combatted.

    The film is particularly strong at showing the impact of jihadist beliefs on the families of those engaged in terrorism. It cuts through all the nonsense of terrorists being portrayed as psychopathic loners, showing Omar (Riz Ahmed) as a family man attempting to reconcile his religious beliefs with his responsibilities as a husband and father. In one poignant moment, he tells his young son a bedtime story, explaining the principles of Islamic jihad in relation to The Lion King. In another equally sad scene, he poses as a hospital porter to get past police and say goodbye to his wife during her shift on reception. He says that he'll "be going now" and she glances back at him, tearful yet loyal to the last.

    Four Lions also shows the flawed, or at least unsympathetic, position of moderate Muslims, arguing that they are as potentially damaging to the public image of Islam as the suicide bombers. One of Omar's friends adheres very strictly to the teachings of the Qu'ran, to the point where he comes across as distant, arrogant and pious. While Omar does everything with his wife and doesn't force her to cover up, his friend refuses to stand in the same room as a woman; when questioning about keeping women in a cupboard during prayer meetings, he replies: "it was not a cupboard, it was a small room." At this point Omar and his wife respond by chasing him out of their house with water pistols, with Omar's wife declaring sarcastically that she is "out of control". It's a smart and funny way of showing the nuances of Islamic attitudes to women, which have all too often been reduced to simple-minded caricature.

    This scene leads onto one of the great set-piece gags in Four Lions (although gag is perhaps not the best way to describe it). At one point the four bombers meet at the house and discuss bombing the London Marathon. The camera keeps cutting between their conversations and the police pulling up outside a house, shot in night vision. This editing leads us to think that the bombers are going to be ambushed - only for the police to break into the 'study group' of the moderates, arresting the men and taking the women out of the 'cupboard'. Morris throws us a totally welcome curveball, and offers a memorable pay-off involving a freight container doubling for Egyptian soil and Weetabix being used as a bargaining chip.

    What makes Four Lions work as a study or satire of fundamentalism is that it doesn't claim to have all the answers for exactly why young people are doing this. Morris spent the best part of six years researching the film, and clearly understands that there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to any aspect of this phenomenon. The film is concerned as much with exposing the hypocrisy of radical Islam as it is deflating the helpless, squirming responses of MPs and other authority figures. In putting every party, political or otherwise, under the spotlight, Morris is exposing and shaming the tendency to oversimplify the issues for the sake of sound-bites, or the cowardly approach taken by groups and politicians to avoid the issue altogether.

    Four Lions is a great black comedy which indicates that Chris Morris can be as good a film director as he is when working in TV or radio. It isn't quite perfect, relying a little too often on broad comedy in its first act, and there is the outside possibility that audiences will come away feeling that, in terms of pure laughs, they didn't get their money's worth. Make no mistake, Four Lions is an often hilarious film, but it is more than funny - it hits the rich seam of awkward or edgy comedy which leaves one feeling shaken as well as stirred. In short, it is an all-round triumph from one of Britain's greatest comedy talents.
  • EightThirty
    November 29, 2011
    EightThirty
    29/07/2011 (PS3)

    SO STUPID ITS FUNNY and so funny in a stupid way. From the beginning it all looks serious, till they speak that is. You could say its a dodgy film... but its not. Pay attention because every line is dynamite.

    I guess for me this flick surprised me. I ... read morenever heard of "Four Lions", never seen a trailer... nothing, so deciding to watch this was no screamer I just wanted to see the beginning to see if this was watchable... next minute I saw the whole thing.

    May be a tad sensitive for those who may take this personally or it may bring the house down with laughter. A laughable sit with some dramatic situations that puts your thoughts to the test.
  • paulsandberg
    November 24, 2011
    paulsandberg
    Playing like an extended Monty Python skit, Four Lions is a mostly hilarious (though a bit too long) send up of Jihadists yearning for martyrdom.

    Nothing is sacred here, from the Pakistani living in England to an angry Englishman, they all want their 15 minutes of fame, each r... read moreecording their terrorist tapes, claiming responsibility for some action that the cell is too bumbling to carry off.

    The Englishman wants to blow up a mosque, reasoning that such an action will incite the remaining Muslims to join in the jihad. There's a gleeful look in his eye as he proclaims the end of days and revels in the thought of the great final battle in which Islam will be victorious. Of course the leader of the cell, who has ties to Pakistan, informs him that if the mosque is blown up, there will be far fewer Muslims available to fight. Later the Englishman records his glory tape, taking credit for the upcoming Mosque bombing, in the name of some bogus Islamic Jihadic organization (think the Christian Leftest Front from Life of Brian) - totally ignoring the fact that if he wanted to enlist more Muslims, he shouldn't be claiming that the bombing came from a Muslim group.

    There are some truly hilarious scenes here - for example, the Pakistani gets called back to Pakistan by an uncle to receive "terrorist training". He takes his best friend, and once in Pakistan they boast to one another that they will kill each other in the name of the cause. Further, once entrenched at the "secret training facility", they use their cell phones to take a video of themselves decked out as terrorists (including the requisite shooting of machine guns into the sky) - the transmission of the cell phone is traceable and soon, while the leaders are having a secret meeting on the other side of the valley, the base is attacked by a US drone. Our heroes get a rocket launcher and intend to take out the drone, but point the wrong end - sending the rocket backwards and into the other side of the valley where the leaders were having their pow-wow. Check out the ending credits for a very funny bit showing the US news report on the incident.

    Furthering the Monty Python theme, there is a scene requiring the foursome to walk/run in a bizarre crouch, holding bags of explosives in front of them (think the Ministry of Funny Walks), plus several goofy scenes of things blowing up that also harken back to The Flying Circus days.

    Finally, there is an off the charts scene where one of the foursome is encouraged to climb over a wall while holding explosives - there is a group of grazing sheep on the other side, so when the "terrorist" fall over the wall he manages to blow himself and a couple of sheep to smithereens. The remaining three cell members then argue whether the fallen comrade should be considered a martyr for sacrificing himself even though he didn't really advance the cause. They finally rationalize that by killing a sheep, they were negatively impacting the food chain, hence their fallen friend would be rushed to heaven and given the virgins he deserves as a martyr for the cause.

    Of course not all the jokes work, and the zaniness and stupidity of the four lions does wear a bit thin - but all in all, as a piece of indy type satire, this film is quite enjoyable.
  • CreedsDelight
    October 3, 2011
    CreedsDelight
    Hassan: I'm a martyr, you're all squashed tomatoes.

    This bored me; popped in 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' to laugh again.
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    September 13, 2011
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Funny, but not as funny as it could have been. Some jokes felt rather flat, and i feel the movie could cut deeper in this issue. Neverless very much worth a check.
  • Tomassgringo
    June 27, 2011
    Tomassgringo
    Some movies are worth watching just because of being unique. This movie tells the story of bumbling terrorist. It is kind of a 4 Stooges movie!

View All Four Lions Reviews

Critic Reviews

Stephen Cole
February 25, 2011
Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail

[Morris's] new comedy has a provocative, ticklish premise -- five North England Muslims become suicide bombers, but can't decide who or what to take with them. Full Review

Peter Howell
February 24, 2011
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

It's difficult to imagine a movie this boldly provocative about the underworld of violent jihad, much less one that actually inspires laughter. Full Review

Tom Long
January 14, 2011
Tom Long, Detroit News

The first feature, written and directed by satirist Chris Morris, may seem profane to some, but if you're doomed by watching it, at least you'll go down laughing. Full Review

Colin Covert
January 6, 2011
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A dark farce sitting somewhere between "Dr. Strangelove" and "Duck Soup." It will blow you away. Full Review

Roger Moore
December 30, 2010
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

"Four Lions" is a very funny British send-up of the dimwitted children of parents smart enough to escape their repressive Islamic homelands. Full Review

Lisa Kennedy
December 17, 2010
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

Four Lions is more interesting than riotous. Consider it an example - a well-paced, clever and understated compassionate example - of a filmmaker wrestling with fear. Full Review

Richard Nilsen
December 10, 2010
Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic

Really, these guys are just knuckleheads. And the movie is full of outrageous laughs. Full Review

Anthony Lane
November 15, 2010
Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Might this not have worked better, and conjured more startled outrage, as a mock documentary on TV? Full Review

Michael Phillips
November 12, 2010
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

I think it's appalling in all the right ways. While its lingering aftertaste of ashes in the mouth is unmistakable, I'd argue that the subject warrants it. Full Review

Dana Stevens
November 12, 2010
Dana Stevens, Slate

The very existence of Four Lions is an act of audacity; the fact that it's also smart, humane, and frequently hilarious is nothing short of a miracle. Full Review

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    • Waj: Rubber dinghy rapids, bro.
    • Faisal: I've got this plan right? I'm gonna put a bomb on a crow, then fly it into one of them towers filled with Jews and slags.
    • Barry: They'll pump you full of Viagra. Make you fuck a dog!
    • Waj: I'm not confused brother! I just took picture of my face, and it's deffo not my confused face.
    • Negotiator: The report makes crystal clear that the police shot the right man, but as far as I'm aware, the wrong man exploded. Is that clear?
    • Omar: I'm taking my team up to the top floor now. I'll see you up there.
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