2010 Sundance Film Festival

Could there be a more hot-button topic than terrorism these days? Although it is historically the subject of serious documentaries and intense dramatic films, renowned British comedian Chris Morris finds the humor (and ultimately the humanity) in this extremist world.

Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that—while terrorism is about ideology—it can also be about idiots.

Based on three years of research and meetings with everyone from imams to ex-mujahedeen—not to mention a wealth of surveillance material from major trials, Four Lions plunges beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien or evil. Instead, it portrays them as human beings, who, as we all know, are innately ridiculous.Libby Durdy, Warp Films
Email: libby@warpfilms.com