Christopher Morris isn’t exactly a stranger to controversy. His red hot satire seems to have upset as many people as it has made laugh. The Daily Mail set were flabbergasted at Brass Eye as they were told it was making light of paedophiles. Actually, it was making fun of Daily Mail readers. His comedy has always veered between disturbing (like Jam) and supremely silly (The Day Today). Four Lions, his first feature film, deals with serious subjects but is actually one of his silliest pieces of work.
The film follows the most useless group of terrorists since the People’s Front of Judea. Omar (the excellent Riz Ahmed) is a young man who wants to make his mark on the world by blowing himself up. After a disasterous stint at a training camp in Pakistan with friend Waj (Kayvan Novak), Omar and his cell decide to go it alone and organise their own attack on London. Unfortunately for Omar, the idiocy of Waj, Barry (Nigel Lindsay), Hassan (Arsher Ali) and Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) complicate matters at every turn.
The earlier Monty Python reference is very apt, as there is something very Pythonesque about the humour here. The characters are extremely stupid, almost to a surreal level. Even Omar, the brains of the outfit, is stupid by definition – he has a nice life in the Britain with a beautiful wife and son, yet he wants to destroy it. This was Morris’s intention, to show how muddled your thinking must be believe being a suicide bomber is a good idea.
I suppose Daily Mail readers will say that the film is making light of terrorism, of showing suicide bombers being nice people. It is true that by using the template of a heist movie, Morris does make the audience (the real target of the bombs) root for the bombers at some points in the film. This is because the characters are engaging and, yes, not wholly evil. However, they aren’t brain washed – they are aware that what they are doing will lead to mass slaughter. The fact that these “normal” people could be capable of this is perhaps more terrifying than portraying them as classic baddies, and certainly more realistic.
This is a truly hilarious film, but the jokes do not detract from how upsetting much of it is or how tragic for all concerned. Morris has pitched the whole thing about as well as you could have hoped for, walking an extremely thin tightrope the whole way. Like his old mucker Armando Iannucci (co-writer of the In the Loop) he is making comedy that gets to the heart of matters.
Sunday 4 July 2010
Review - Sex and the City 2
The first Sex and the City film was a big disappointment. Most of it was just fashion porn, with some truly hideous mawkish moments (more often than not starring poor Jennifer Hudson). A few genuinely touching bits were cancelled out by the extended wedding fashion shoot cringing.
Now that I have accepted that SATC on the big screen will always be a horrible version of the TV series, I could enjoy the second outing as a mildly amusing romp. The faux-seriousness of their supposed problems aside (you do have it tough, girls – having the children you so desperately craved, the love of your life that eluded you so long, or a demanding job), the film is an enjoyable trip with your four favourite girlfriends, even if they are bastardised versions of people you once loved.
The plot, as it goes, concerns Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte worrying about their lives and going on an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi. Compared with the first film, fewer moments stuck in my proverbial craw. Those that did were:
Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon are great comedic actresses, outshining their co-stars in a way that wasn’t noticeable in the TV show. Working with a so-so script, they deliver some great lines. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis’s characters are often just annoying.
Generally this is funnier and ten times stupider than the first film. Which means it is a hundred times stupider than the original series. Let it wash over you and, whatever you do, don’t analyse it.
Now that I have accepted that SATC on the big screen will always be a horrible version of the TV series, I could enjoy the second outing as a mildly amusing romp. The faux-seriousness of their supposed problems aside (you do have it tough, girls – having the children you so desperately craved, the love of your life that eluded you so long, or a demanding job), the film is an enjoyable trip with your four favourite girlfriends, even if they are bastardised versions of people you once loved.
The plot, as it goes, concerns Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte worrying about their lives and going on an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi. Compared with the first film, fewer moments stuck in my proverbial craw. Those that did were:
- The wedding. Given the history of the two characters it felt deeply wrong, even if the ceremony was fabulous.
- Why did Penelope Cruz have a cameo? What did that bring to the film?
- What was going on with the accent of Samantha’s “Danish” guy? He sounded like he was from Rotherham.
- Many outfits were just ludicrous - taffeta and souks do not mix.
Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon are great comedic actresses, outshining their co-stars in a way that wasn’t noticeable in the TV show. Working with a so-so script, they deliver some great lines. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis’s characters are often just annoying.
Generally this is funnier and ten times stupider than the first film. Which means it is a hundred times stupider than the original series. Let it wash over you and, whatever you do, don’t analyse it.
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