Four Lions

Four Lions is a 2010 British political satire black comedy film directed by Chris Morris (in his feature film debut) from a screenplay written by Morris, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. It stars Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay, Arsher Ali and Adeel Akhtar. In the film, a group of dimwitted homegrown terrorist jihadis attempt to plan an attack in Britain.
Production on Four Lions began in late 2008, with writing partners Armstrong and Bain hired to complete the screenplay. Prior to this, Morris spent multiple years researching for the film, conducting interviews with terrorism and religion experts, law enforcement, and British Muslims. Principal photography took place in May 2009, with filming primarily done on location in Sheffield.
Four Lions first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 23 January 2010, and was released in the United Kingdom on 7 May, by Optimum Releasing. The film grossed £6 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the screenplay, direction, themes, humour, and cast performances (particularly Ahmed's).
Four radicalised British Muslim men living in Sheffield (three of whom are British Pakistani) aspire to become suicide bombers: Omar, who is deeply critical of Western society and interventionism; his dim-witted and anxious cousin Waj; Barry, a bad-tempered and rash English convert; and Faisal, a naive friend loyal to Barry and whose father suffers from regular hallucinations and delusion. The group film tapes denouncing Western policy
Omar and Waj are informed by a middle man that they have been selected to attend an al-Qaeda-affiliated training camp in Pakistan. However, the news causes friction in the group as Barry believes he should also attend. Whilst driving Omar and Waj to the airport, Barry informs the group he is also going to Pakistan and nominates Faisal to run the cell in their absence. Barry swallows his car keys when Omar refuses, so the group hotwire his car and hold him captive in the boot.
In Pakistan, Omar and Waj are treated with scorn by the other jihadists. Waj's child like ways, such as bringing his prayer bear and a book called The Camel That Went to the Mosque, infuriate their contact. The situation escalates after Waj argues with jihdaists about the direction of Mecca and is then caught filming himself shooting an AK-47 with his phone, potentially alerting American drones. As punishment for his actions, Waj and Omar are confined to camp and ordered to clean a weapons cache before leaving Pakistan the next day, effectively ending their chances of gaining an al-Qaeda emir. Whilst cleaning the weapons, Omar and Waj spot a drone circling near the camp and choose to shoot it down with a rocket before it can attack. However, Omar grabs the weapon by the wrong end and fires the rocket directly into a meeting of local al-Qaeda officials occurring on the opposite side of the valley. Omar and Waj flee in the havoc and are attacked by the drone, barely surviving.
In Omar's absence, Barry appears on the panel of an Islamic extremism conference under his kunya Azzam al-Brittani, the founder of the "Islamic State of Tinsley". During the conference, Hassan Malik, another young British-Pakistani, stages a fake suicide bombing and is removed by the police. Barry approaches him after the meeting and brings him into the group as the fifth member. The pair visit Faisal's garage, where he has been stockpiling peroxide all purchased at the same whole-sale shop. After Barry highlights that buying from the same place could get them arrested, Faisal explains he used different voices to buy the products, including his own, that of a woman, and an "IRA" voice.
Barry and Hassan meet Omar and Waj, who lie about successfully gaining an emir, at the airport. Omar uses this to cement himself further as the groups leader whilst expressing concern about the inclusion of Hassan. To win Omar over, Hassan tells him that he can steal a van from his fathers warehouse to move their supplies discreetly.
Omar informs the cell that their fictional emir has ordered them to select targets, though there is disagreement about where the attack should be focused. Barry wants to bomb a local mosque as a false flag operation to "radicalise the moderates" and Faisal suggests blowing up a Boots because it sells contraceptives and tampons. Omar rejects both of these ideas, again clashing with Barry. Under the guise of being a band, the cell moves Faisal's stockpile to a flat and converts it into a bomb-making facility. Barry, adamant that his plan will be selected, secretly makes a tape claiming responsibility for bombing the mosque, for which he is ridiculed by the others.
Ahmed, Omar's conservative, pacifist brother, visits his home and tries to talk him out of doing anything violent; however, Omar and his wife mock Ahmed for keeping his wife in a small room and shoot him with water pistols. The cell begins production of the explosives, developing quantities of TATP for use in the bombs. Faisal, realising an attack would involve killing himself, attempts to train a crow to take his place unsuccessfully. Barry, Faisal and Waj leave Hassan to watch the safehouse and conduct a test detonation with a microwave, using a nearby fireworks show to cover the sound. On their return to the flat, however, they find Hassan dancing with an oblivious neighbour and have to hastily abandon the compromised flat.
The cell moves the materials and explosives to a new location in shopping bags, but Barry's car breaks down on the way. Desperate to get the explosives off the street, the group hastily run to Barry's to store them. Whilst crossing a field, Faisal trips over a wall and his explosives detonate, killing him and several sheep. Barry tries unsuccessfully to paint Faisal as a martyr for attacking food infrastructure, leading an infuriated Omar to dissolve the cell and cancel the attack. However, after Faisal's head is found, tipping off the authorities, Omar tells the others and they reconcile. Thank to their access to mascot costumes capable of disguising their bombs through Hassan's fathers business, Omar convinces the cell to attack the London Marathon. That night, armed police raid Omar's brother's house in the mistaken belief he is planning an attack.
Omar visits the hospital and says goodbye to his wife before driving to London with the cell. Whilst getting prepared, Waj expresses concerns about the morality of the plot, but Omar convinces him to go through with it. A police officer approaches the group, which leads Hassan to have a change of heart and attempt to alert the officer about their plot, but he is killed when Barry remotely detonates his bomb. The remaining three panic and run away as the police search for them. Omar runs in the marathon and narrowly avoids being shot by police marksmen who mistakenly kill a man in a wookiee costume in place of his Honey Monster costume. Waj is cornered by police in a kebab shop and takes the staff hostage. Omar calls Waj and convinces him to let all but one of the hostages go. Barry finds Omar, snatches his phone, and swallows the SIM card. However, as Barry begins to choke, a well-meaning passer-by attempts to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, forcing Omar to flee before Barry's bombs are inadvertently detonated.
Whilst Waj negotiates with a rookie mediator from Special Branch, Omar hurries to a nearby phone store to buy a new SIM card but leaves empty-handed. He spots Matt, a colleague who he works security with, and tells him he has been secretly working with MI5 to break up an alliance between Fathers 4 Justice and the Real IRA. Under this pretense, Matt lends him his phone to contact Waj. Omar attempts to talk Waj down, but his call is interrupted when the police charge in and kill the remaining hostage, whom they mistake for Waj. Waj's bomb is then detonated, killing everyone in the kebab shop. Distraught, Omar walks into a nearby pharmacy and detonates his own bomb.
In an epilogue, it is revealed the police later arrested Omar's innocent brother as a terrorist and abducted him to a black site; that they deflect responsibility for shooting the hostage and the bystander; and that Omar unknowingly killed Osama bin Laden when misfiring the rocket in Pakistan.
Morris spent three years researching the project, speaking to terrorism experts, police, the secret service, and imams, as well as ordinary Muslims, and writing the script in 2007. In a separate interview, he asserts that the research predated the 7 July 2005 London bombings:
Chris Morris explained that Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain were brought into the project as "experts in the school of male psychology, plus they have technical expertise and experience of comedy dialogue." Armstrong and Bain provided the first script, which Morris subsequently rewrote and edited.
Riz Ahmed initially declined the role of Omar but later signed on as he felt the film "challenged stereotypes". He received Morris' attention after writing a song called "Post 9/11 Blues" which he wrote about being detained at Luton Airport after the screening of the docudrama Road to Guantanamo in Berlin.
Morris suggested in a mass email, titled "Funding Mentalism", that fans could contribute between £25 and £100 each to the production costs of the film and would appear as extras in return. Funding was secured in October 2008 from Film 4 Productions and Warp Films, with Derrin Schlesinger & Mark Herbert producing. Filming began in Sheffield in May 2009, with scenes being filmed the City Centre, Meadowhall Shopping Centre and the district of Meersbrook.
Morris has described the film as a farce, which exposes the "Dad's Army side to terrorism". During the making of the film, the director sent the script to former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg. Begg has said that he found nothing in the script that would be offensive to British Muslims. Riz Ahmed also contacted Begg, to ask whether the subject matter was "too raw". When the film was completed, Begg was given a special screening and said that he enjoyed it.
The film's music supervisor was Phil Canning. The song "Avril 14th" by electronic musician Aphex Twin plays during the film's ending credits.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010 and was short-listed for the festival's World Cinema Narrative prize. Introducing the film's premiere, Morris said: "I feel in a weird way that this is a good-hearted film. It's not a hate film, so I would hope that aspect would come through."
The UK première took place at the National Media Museum as part of Bradford International Film Festival on 25 March 2010, and was followed by a nationwide release on 7 May. The UK premiere at the National Media Museum in Bradford was followed by a question and answer session with Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, three of the principal actors, and two of the producers. Morris stated that he does not find the film at all controversial and that attempting to cause controversy is "one of the most boring things you can do". Morris also gave a talk introducing the film at a summer 2010 screening at Latitude Festival in Suffolk.
Despite its acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, Four Lions failed to find a distributor in the U.S. for nine months, until the newly formed Drafthouse Films picked it up. The film had a limited release in the US on 5 November 2010.
Four Lions was released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on 30 August 2010, and in the U.S. on 8 March 2011.
Four Lions received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 84%, based on 136 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "Its premise suggests brazenly tasteless humor, but Four Lions is actually a smart, pitch-black comedy that carries the unmistakable ring of truth." Metacritic gives the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 28 critics.
The Daily Telegraph wrote that "[Chris Morris's] evocations of the claustrophobic mundanity of the Muslims' lives, their querulous banter, their flimsily pick 'n' mix approach to the Koran all feel painfully, brilliantly real." The Daily Express rated Four Lions four out of five and praised the performances in particular, calling the film "brilliantly cast with all the actors displaying sharp comic timing and both [Riz] Ahmed and [Kayvan] Novak also bringing out the touching humanity of their characters".
Upon its screening at Sundance, the Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter gave the film positive reviews, the latter describing the film as "a brilliant takedown of the imbecility of fanaticism" drawing comparisons with This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and The Three Stooges.
Amongst the reviewers that gave the film negative and mixed reviews were Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times, who called the film a "spectacular miss" and The Guardian's Jeremy Kay, who wrote "as a satire on terror, Four Lions seems to be a missed opportunity". Andrew Pulver, also writing for The Guardian, gave the film a more favourable review, stating that "Chris Morris is still the most incendiary figure working in the British entertainment industry".
Despite an initial release on just 115 screens across the UK, the film was successful at the box office on its opening weekend, generating the highest site average of all the new releases (£5,292) and making a total of £609,000. According to the Official Top 10 UK Film Chart (7–9 May 2010), Four Lions was placed at sixth, behind Iron Man 2, Furry Vengeance, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hot Tub Time Machine and The Back-up Plan. Due to its popularity, Optimum Releasing increased the number of screens showing the film to 200.
As of 8 August 2010, Four Lions grossed £2,932,366 at the UK box office. As of 2013, Four Lions' worldwide gross was $6,149,356.
Time magazine rated the film as among Top 10 movies of 2010.
Two lead actors, Kayvan Novak and Nigel Lindsay, were nominated for Best Comedy Performance in Film at the British Comedy Awards 2010. Kayvan Novak went on to win the award, thanking all his "brothers", referring to his fellow actors in Four Lions.
At the BAFTAs 2011, Chris Morris won the award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. He beat competition from The Arbor, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Monsters and Skeletons.