"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" "Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!" Is it wrong of me to compare "Four Lions" to the WB animated series "Pinky and the Brain"? I don't think so. This film is filled with side-splitting laughter and satirical takes on suicide-bombers plotting one ridiculous terrorist attempt after another even more ridiculous terrorist attempt. Clone Pinky two more times, convert the four of them to Muslim extremists and place them in London in today's world, and you've got Omar and his fellow anarchists trying to teach the world a lesson.
Their incompetence is taken to the same extremes as their beliefs. Their possible targets include expletive-described Disney theme parks, their own Mosque, and using such genius methods as strapping a bomb to a crow, or to themselves as they are running around a field. You will laugh until you cry.
Laughs aside, it takes a special kind of film to create four protagonists out of inept suicide-bombers and emotionally connect you. And we haven't even touched the moxie that these filmmakers have to tackle such a subject. Comparisons to "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and Monty Python are all valid here. Even if this story isn't your style, it's hard not to be impressed with how they pulled off "Four Lions".
