Four Lions (***)

There’s much debate about why there haven’t been more terrorist attacks since 9/11, but maybe it’s because a lot of would-be jihadists just aren’t that capable. In any case, a few of the writers of the political satire In the Loop have deployed the underutilized weapon of mockery against them here. Four Lions follows five young Londoners as they try to come up with a worthwhile application of their commitment to the cause. In the first scene, they attempt to make a trophy video, but the gun is too small and the guy being filmed looks more like a middle-class suburbanite than an al-Qaeda badass. Two of them head for training in Pakistan but wind up accidentally shooting Arabs. Back home, the lads bicker about whether bombing a mosque will incite Muslims to rise up or merely be the equivalent of punching yourself in the face. (According to director Christopher Morris, this particular argument is taken verbatim from secretly taped conversations of jihadis.)

Following these idiots for 90 minutes get monotonous, story-wise, but it’s consistently funny. (One of the biggest laughs comes during the credits.) By making its subjects more silly than fearsome, the film pulls off the neat trick of making them seem almost sympathetic.

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viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/22/10