Sunday, 16 August 2009

Jihadi comedy: 'Four Lions' screenshots released

After months of baited breath, I am proud to announce that there has been news on Chris Morris' latest project; Four Lions.


The satirist responsible for projects such as The Day Today and Brass Eye has been in relative hiding in recent years, doing painstaking research into Muslim culture and the nature of suicide bombing, in one of his bravest moves yet; a 'jihadi comedy'.


There is no doubt that Four Lions is going to cause huge waves, but the question remains, where? Morris has reportedly been speaking to everyone from armed police to security experts to Muslim community workers. That and getting into a fight with Martin Amis. The expectation is that, like Brass Eye, this will cause a large amount of offence, especially due to the volatility of the subject matter, something on a par with the Danish cartoons which set a large group of extremist Muslims at war with the Danes.


But I don't believe that Morris took this project on simply to start a tornado of Islami-political hell. There is no doubt that this will be the most challenging project he's ever done, and my gut tells me that he would not use the opportunity to simply offend as many Muslims as possible.

The project has some great names attached to it, the named so far include Peep Show writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, as well as staple Morris comics such as Kevin Eldon.

We seem to be barely months from the first genuine 'jihadi comedy' feature film. There is no doubt that this will severely shake up the Western stance towards Islam in one way or another. However, I think if there's one person who can handle this gig, it's Morris.


The production company has reportedly said that the film's 'tornado of industry is now trapped and humming in a box'. It's certainly worth being there when that box is opened.

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