Four Lions research

Director: Chris Morris
Written by: Chris Morris, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong
Starring:Riz Ahmed

Arsher Ali

Nigel Lindsay

Kayvan Novak

Adeel Akhtar

Craig Parkinson

Release: the film premiered at the Sundance film festival in January 2010 the UK premiere took place on the 25th March 2010 at the Bradford international film festival followed by a nationwide release on the 7th May.

Box office ratings: Despite an initial release on just 115 screens across the UK, the film saw impressive numbers at the box office on its opening weekend, generating the highest site average of all the new releases (£5,292) and making a total of £609,000.

• As of 8 August 2010, Four Lions grossed £2,932,366 at the UK box office.
• As of 10 February 2011, Four Lions grossed $300,226 at the US box office, and $4,228,904 elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $4,529,130.

Production: Chris Morris spent 3 years researching the project, speaking to terroist experts, police, the secret services, imams as well as ordinary Muslims. The project was originally rejected by both the BBC and channel 4 for being too controversial. Therefore Morris suggested a mass email called 'funding mentalism' so fans could contribute money for production costs of the film. However eventually Film 4 production and Warp films secured funding in October 2008.

Plot: The film follows a group of young Muslim men living in Sheffield who aspire to become radicalised suicide bombers. The film follows the group attempting and failing many times to blow up various locations with suggestions such as bombing the mosque being made. In the end the group decide to bomb the London marathon disguising themselves in fancy dress. However in the end the leader Omar realises he has mislead and forced his friend Waj into doing something he doesnt want to do and tries to persuade him not to kill himself, this fails and Waj detonates the bomb in a local kebab shop. Distraught Omar goes to the pharmacy a suggestion previously made to bomb and detonates his own bomb.

Critical response: Four Lions recieved mostly positive reviews such as; "premise suggests brazenly tasteless humor, but Four Lions is actually a smart, pitch-black comedy that carries the unmistakable ring of truth." this was said by the site Rotton tomatoes which gave the film a rating of 81% with an average rating of 7.2 out of 10 by viewers. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ The daily telegraph said how his humour and approach was brilliantly real. However the film did get some negative reviews amongst these was one from The Guardian which said that "as a satire on terror, Four Lions seems to be a missed opportunity".

However Morris fought back by saying...
Morris has described the film as a "farce", which exposes the "Dad's Army side to terrorism".During the making of the film, the director sent the script to former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg. Begg has said that he found nothing in the script that would be offensive to British Muslims. The actor Riz Ahmed also contacted Begg, to ask whether the subject matter was "too raw". When the film was completed, Begg was given a special screening and said that he enjoyed it.

Behind the title: The title of Four Lions was chosen as Omar the leader of the group constantly refers to each lion choosing suicide for themselves.