Monday, 16 April 2012

Dvd review: Four Lions


A group of young Muslim clumsily attempts to stage a terrorist attack.

This movie certainly tried to generate controversy. Satirizing Islamic terrorism in this day and age is still something that a lot of people frown about. The problem seems to be twofold. First that this somehow diminish the importance of the war on terror and second that this also somehow makes fun of the victims.
After watching the movie I’m honestly still conflicted. While I certainly believe that terrorism has been wrongly portrayed in popular culture as a superhuman treat this movie, while certainly rectifying that issue, didn’t convince me completely.
The main problem is that this is mainly a satire and so the majority of the running time is devoted to highlighting the various contradictions of the terrorist mind set. The tone therefore is uneven, there are not a lot of genuinely funny moments, and it communicates mostly puzzlement and uncertainty.
There is a vague attempt at character study but in the end this is one of the blackest comedies ever, if you appreciate an exploding crow you’ll certainly have fun but for the rest it clearly misses the target. Too comic to make a statement but too serious to be really funny.

No comments:

Post a Comment