Im watching thie movie again tonight and I cant help but think that everyone involved in the production of this movie, including the actors, writer/director... EVERYONE has huge balls for creating and releasing this movie.
I can't sit here and pretend that I don't understand how a lot of people out there don't "get it" or are offended by it. It's a completely touchy and risky subject to center a black comedy around.
I commend the filmmakers and actors (especially the actors) for following through and releasing this because that takes guts. It's surely not for everyone, but personally I think this movie is amazing in every conceivable way.
Hear, hear! Same for Mel Brooks. In Blazing Saddles Mel took some of that British "I don't give a fook, I'm speaking me mind! If feathers are ruffled, so be it."
He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.
Hear, hear! Same for Mel Brooks. In Blazing Saddles Mel took some of that British "I don't give a fook, I'm speaking me mind! If feathers are ruffled, so be it."
I like the Mel Brooks analogy because with Blazing Saddles it did take some guts, so much so that I believe the reason that the financiers behind the movie didn't want Richard Pryor cast in the role of the lead hero (the role incidentally went to the lesser known, Cleavon Little an actor rather than a comic who made a fitting alternative).
Anyway, I digress, Four Lions was an admirable but flawed movie. While a good film it's a little too imperfect to be hailed as a classic although it comes fairly close. It's an astute and well observed comedy which manages to blend lighthearted black humour and dark drama together rather well. The movie starts off fairly comical but towards the end, the tone of it shifts quite dramatically. The final shot before the credits role is especially sobering.
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Actually this is typically gutless British. They made sure to remove every reference to "Allah", even though the subjects they are supposed to "satirizing" never stop sayin "Allah", especially in the RPG scene, the first thing terrorists are taught is to say "Allah akbar" as they fire their weapons. It is quite gutless to de-Islamicize this subject.
They try to make the Muslims look reluctant and the White guy is the real terrorist, this far removed from the reality of Muslim terrorism, and again quite a cowardly attempt to de-Islamicize terrorism.
Not only that it was mostly unfunny anyway, so at least in those terms, a typical British comedy. The deaths of the Muslims were funny, but they want us to laugh at the deaths of innocent civilians and police officers, who themselves are made to look incompetent and evil (apparently the Muslim terrorists are not incompetent and evil at al, just the Whites). The Muslims are made to look merely misguided and regretful, the sympathy is supposed to be for them, not the innocent people they killed, they even have the down-home accents to make them sound more British than British.