History Film / FourLions

%%* EpicFail: But their fail is our win.

%%* MistakenForTerrorist: {{Played with}} several times.
%%* MoodDissonance: Every other scene.

%%* TheNeidermeyer: Barry.

%% * SenselessSacrifice: Explored inside-out in hilarious/shocking fashion.

%%* SomebodySetUpUsTheBomb: Literally, and delivered in person.

* VillainProtagonist: The Lions themselves, as a sympathetic portrayal of Jihadists.

* ShownTheirWork: In an interview with NPR Chris Morris stated the film was based on research he'd done after 9/11 that led him to believe many would-be terrorists are completely incompetent. He claimed that the 'bomb the mosque' scene is taken verbatim from an MI5 surveillance transcript.

** At the training camp, Waj and Omar try to use a rocket launcher to destroy a [=UAV=], only for it to fire backwards. [[spoiler: During the very end of the movie, we find out they took out UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden—this was a year before he actually was killed.]]

* CloudCuckooLander: Alice.
--> "I used to be in a band... until all the birds fell off the roof."

* {{Jerkass}}: Barry. The others get a few PetTheDog moments and generally seem to not quite understand the implications of what they're planning on doing, but Barry is from the word go violent, depraved and racist, and it is heavily implied (and confirmed by WordOfGod) that he is a former member of the racist right-wing [=BNP=] and the only reason he ever got into fundamentalist Islam was as a flimsy excuse to hurt people.

* MartyrdomCulture: {{Deconstructed}}, with idiocy.
--> "He'll be in heaven before his head hits the ceiling!"
* MirroringFactions: An implied example. In [[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/7196487/Chris-Morris-in-the-lions-den.html an interview]], Morris revealed that Barry was based on a real-life person who was originally a member of the [=BNP=] but who decided to study the Qu'ran to be better able to attack Muslims, only to end up accidentally converting himself and becoming a key face of Islamic fundamentalism. While Barry's similar past is only subtly alluded to (it most obviously coming out in his suspicious eagerness to blow up mosque, implying he hasn't entirely abandoned his former prejudices), this backstory establishes a clear parallel between white nationalist terrorism and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

* NeverMyFault: After [[spoiler: Faisal accidentally blows himself up]], Omar furiously chews out Barry for recruiting Hassan, which led to the events that ultimately [[spoiler: killed Faisal]]. Barry's response?
--> '''Barry:''' ... So, really, Hassan killed him.

-->''"The Police [[BlatantLies shot the right man, but the wrong man exploded]]."''
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The poor unwitting first-aider who comes to Barry's aid, and the police who [[spoiler: burst in just in time to distract Waj from Omar's order to give himself up peacefully.]]
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: An attempt to take out a US [=UAV=] ends up [[spoiler:killing Osama Bin Laden]].

* OhCrap: [[http://www.libertasfilmmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Four-Lions-04345.jpg Two of the three lions present]] who [[spoiler: witness Faisal's death]]. The other is too stupid to immediately comprehend what's happened.

* PoliceAreUseless: [[spoiler: They attack and arrest Omar's peace-loving brother in the middle of a meeting with his Muslim friends whilst Omar is stuffing nitroglycerin into a Honey Monster outfit, they shoot an innocent marathon runner dressed as Chewbacca and after a naive negotiator (played by Creator/BenedictCumberbatch) completely flubs the Waj hostage situation, they break in and shoot his hostage, meaning that two entirely innocent people were killed directly by police incompetence.]]

** The sequence with the [[spoiler: police shooting the wrong person at the marathon]] reminded some viewers of the controversy over the shooting of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_De_Menezes Jean Charles De Menezes]].

* UndignifiedDeath: Practically all of them. The crowner though (and certainly the most deserved by a mile) being [[spoiler:Barry, who gets accidentally blown to smithereens costume by a {{Good Samaritan}} trying to perform the Heimlich on him while he's choking on a [=SIM=] card. For bonus points, he's wearing a ridiculous [[Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Raphael]] costume.]]

* WomenAreWiser: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]]. Omar's wife seems like a down-to-earth woman, but as the film progresses, we see that she's completely onboard with Omar's plan to kill himself, and doesn't seem to have the slightest problem with him leaving her a widow with a young son. Critics found this to be unrealistic, but the filmmakers asserted that real terrorists often have remarkably stable home lives.

* HeelFaceDoorSlam: Hassan bottles it at the last second and tries to turn himself into the police, but Barry has other plans and detonates his bomb.

* AffablyEvil: All of the main characters - except the AxCrazy Barry.

* AxCrazy: Barry is clearly not very stable, and one gets the impression that he's turned to radical Islam largely because it gives him an excuse to be violent. WordOfGod is that he was originally in the BNP and once decided to read the Qu'ran to "better know his enemy", only to discover that Wahhabist/Salafist Islam was more appealing to him than white nationalism.
* BaaBomb: [[spoiler: "One sheep was blown up in the making of this film."]]
* BaitAndSwitch: In one scene, [[spoiler: it looks like the four would-be terrorists are about to get arrested. The police storm in and arrest Ahmed instead.]]

** The lions claiming to be a bunch of gay men instead of terrorists
* BloodyHilarious: [[spoiler: Faisal and the sheep end up in a binbag.]]

** Early on, Omar scoffs at Faisal's plan to blow up a chemist's (for Americans, a pharmacy). [[spoiler: Guess what he ends up blowing up at the end of the movie?]]

* ChekhovsSkill: Rather, Chekhov's Obnoxious Habit. Barry displays early on his tendency to eat inedible objects, either when he can't get his way or as part of his idiotic self-flagellation obsession (otherwise involving beans or urine). [[spoiler: His final act is attempting to swallow a SIM card to stop Omar from saving Waj's life, only to choke on it, causing a stranger to intervene and ultimately trigger his bomb accidentally.]]

* CrapsackWorld: [[spoiler: The DownerEnding emphasizes this. Omar's ActualPacifist brother gets treated as a terrorist, an innocent runner is killed by the police, and they remain adamant that he wasn't one. Crapsack through incompetence and implied prejudice.]]

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: Hassan, when convinced by Barry to "do something for Islam", jumps at the chance. [[spoiler:He realises what he's signed up to too late and attempts to turn himself in. Sadly, Barry doesn't let him]].

** When they're at the van suiting up before [[spoiler: the marathon, a cop comes up and says "you're gonna die in those suits" to which Omar replies "Probably. It's all for a good cause."]]
* DownerEnding: Being a satire with a pitch-black sense of humor, this is a given. [[spoiler: All the Lions are dead, but this includes Omar and Waj, the most sympathetic Lions, with the former about to call off the plot and turn himself in to the cops, and the latter [[TooDumbToLive too stupid to comprehend half of what was even going on]]. Two innocent people died at the hands of [[PoliceAreUseless the police]], and Omar's innocent, peace-loving brother is framed for the attacks and sent to what is heavily implied to be a TortureCellar.]] But on the bright side, [[spoiler: UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden is dead, too.]]

* EpicFail: But their fail is our win.

** {{Played with}} bizarrely—Omar is heading a terrorist plot to kill who-knows-how-many innocent people, but he still tries to take the moral high ground over his brother for "locking women in a cupboard." He also, a lot more understandably, reacts like this to Barry's plans to blow up a mosque, [[spoiler:takes Faisal's untimely death due to their screw-ups very harshly and derides the others for their carelessness that got him killed]] and is ultimately unwilling to manipulate Waj into blowing himself up when he demonstrates having changed his mind.
** Also, Omar doesn't agree with Barry's blatant antisemitism and calls him out for it more than once.
** Everyone, even ''Barry'', is ashamed when [[spoiler:they accidentally get Faisal killed]].
** All of them are disturbed when they hear about Barry's creepy "initiation rituals" and Omar insists that they don't do those things.

* FauxYay: "We've gotta get down to some gay business now." [[spoiler:They're not.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Barry eating his SIM card, Faisal talking about blowing up a pharmacy.
* TheFundamentalist: Only two characters are actually fundamentalists—Barry and Ahmed, although Barry is hypocritical and lies when pointed out. Omar at most is just a really bitter Cultural Muslim, and the rest of the Lions kind of just do what people tell them to do.
* GratuitousEnglish: The training camp militant speaks in Arabic but randomly throws in bits of English when he's chewing out Omar and Waj, such as when Waj shoots his Kalashnikov in the air, and his long rant mentions "James fuck Bond!"

* HarmlessVillain: Poor old Faisal never seems all that interested in actual terrorism, even if he ''were'' interested he would be too incompetent to do any harm, and he's downright sheepish at the thought of blowing himself up.

* HeelRealization: Barry's murder of Hassan seems to cause Omar to have one of this, as he realizes that he's manipulated poor dumb Waj into joining their plot. He tries to save Waj, but to no avail.

** The jihadists are all determined to kill unbelievers, but Barry starts insisting that they [[FalseFlagOperation target a mosque and blame it on unbelievers]], hoping this will radicalize moderate Muslims. Later, Waj holds a restaurant full of Muslims hostage. One of them even points out that Waj's bomb won't kill ''any'' unbelievers.
** The jihadists all think of themselves as champions of Islam, when none of them seem to be particularly religious. Hassan admits that he rarely goes to mosque, and Barry outright states that it's a waste of time, since he sees everyone in there as idiots and sellouts. Waj doesn't understand the distinction between facing East and facing Mecca to pray (the training camp is in Pakistan and he insists on facing East to pray, instead of Mecca, which is west of them). Omar's family is much less conservative than his deeply religious brother, and they laugh off his religious arguments. Even Faisal, the most devout of the group, is only obeying laws that his father tells him to obey (and his father is crazy).

* InitiationCeremony: Barry makes Hassan insert a bean into his penis and Waj piss into his own mouth.

* JerkAss: Barry. The others get a few PetTheDog moments and generally seem to not quite understand the implications of what they're planning on doing, but Barry is just a terrible person from the word go.
* KickTheDog: "YOU BROKE THE CHICKEN'S BEAK!"

* MistakenForTerrorist: {{Played with}} several times.
* MoodDissonance: Every other scene.

* TheNeidermeyer: Barry.

--> '''Barry:''' …So, really, Hassan killed him.

* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: None except the BaaBomb.

* OnlySaneMan: Omar. And he's not especially bright.

* SenselessSacrifice: Explored inside-out in hilarious/shocking fashion.

* SomebodySetUpUsTheBomb: Literally, and delivered in person.

* StupidCrooks: Stupid terrorists, in this instance.

* TokenWhite: Barry.
* TooDumbToLive: All of the conspirators are this to some degree. [[spoiler: Waj's last words end up being a sort of admission of this.]]
* TortureCellar: [[spoiler: Ahmed's ultimate destination.]]

* UndignifiedDeath: Practically all of them.

--> '''Hassan:''' …So, really, Hassan killed him.

* AntiVillain: Just over half of the Lions are (somewhat) sympathetic characters who've been misled into an evil cause. Waj and Faisal are [[KindheartedSimpleton Kind-hearted Simpletons]] who don't really want to hurt anyone but don't fully grasp what it is they're doing either. Hassan is a clearer example as [[spoiler:unlike the others, he realizes the gravity of the situation and tries to opt out. It doesn't end well]]. The[[SubvertedTrope subversions]] are Omar, who [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes sincerely loves his wife and son]] but still masterminds a terror attack on hundreds of innocent marathon runners, and Barry, who is unstable, antisemetic and cruel and only took up the cause to voice his radicalism and act on his own sadism.

* AntiVillain: Most of the Four Lions are sympathetic characters who are genuinely taken up with their cause. Omar is very devout in his faith, sincerely loves his wife and son and doesn't want innocent people dying, while Waj and Faisal are [[KindheartedSimpleton Kind-hearted Simpletons]] who don't really want to hurt anyone but don't fully grasp what it is they're doing either. Hassan is a clearer example as [[spoiler:unlike the others, he realizes the gravity of the situation and tries to opt out. It doesn't end well]]. The only [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] is Barry, who is unstable, racist and cruel and only took up the cause to voice his radicalism and act on his own sadism.

* LaughablyEvil: If any of them did anything remotely intelligent, the movie would have a ''far'' different tone. Luckily, all of them are too stupid, incompetent and downright misguided (or in Barry's case delusional, racist and violent) to actually achieve anything. This makes their futile attempts at being Jihadists and hardened terrorists ''extremely'' funny and endlessly entertaining, especially Barry with his InsaneTrollLogic and (often unprompted) [[CrossesTheLineTwice racist tirades.]] Even Omar, the most logical and sane of the group, is still a blundering failure who's not only cleaning up their messes, but trying and failing to hatch an effective plan without anyone catching on. This was actually the intention of the filmmakers, as they wanted to show the audience just how ineffective many recruits of this sort of terrorism actually are (and in this movie it's both genuinely sad and PlayedForLaughs).

Creator/RizAhmed stars as Omar, the smartest (but still not-that-smart) of the gang of dim-witted wannabe terrorists. Creator/KayvanNovak plays his cousin Waj, Creator/NigelLindsay plays Barry, an English convert, and Creator/AdeelAkhtar plays Faisal, a naive animal trainer. Creator/BenedictCumberbatch has a small but amusing role near the end as a hostage negotiatior.

* PainfulRhyme: During his fake suicide bombing at the debate, Malik raps a few verses in which he rhymes "martyrs" with "tomatoes". In the end credits, we get an even ''worse'' one: "Got shaheed in my heed for my creed I da-heed." Waj even asks what he's talking about and Malik has to explain that "da-heed" is ''died.''

* EvenEvilHasStandards: {{Played with}} bizarrely—Omar is heading a terrorist plot to kill who-knows-how-many innocent people, but he still tries to take the moral high ground over his brother for "locking women in a cupboard." He also, a lot more understandably, reacts like this to Barry's plans to blow up a mosque, [[spoiler:takes Faisal's untimely death due to their screw-ups very harshly and derides the others for their carelessness that got him killed]] and is ultimately unwilling to manipulate Waj into blowing himself up when he demonstrates having changed his mind. Also, Omar doesn't agree with Barry's blatant antisemitism.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Faisal isn't a flat-out simpleton like Waj, but he's still fairly dim, gullible, and childlike, and his father is all but stated to have schizophrenia or dementia ("seeing creatures that aren't there").

* AmbiguousDisorder: Faisal isn't a flat-out simpleton like Waj, but he's still fairly dim, gullible, and childlike, and his father is all but stated to have schizophrenia ("seeing creatures that aren't there").

* CallASmeerpARabbit: A policeman refers to Omar's Honey Monster costume as a "bear"... [[spoiler: leading to his colleague shooting a fellow runner in a Chewbacca costume instead. There then follows a heated argument between the policemen about whether either Wookiees or the Honey Monster can be considered bears.]]

** The jihadists all think of themselves as champions of Islam, when none of them seem to be particularly religious. Hassan admits that he rarely goes to mosque, and Barry outright states that it's a waste of time, since he sees everyone in there as idiots and sellouts. Waj doesn't seem to understand the concept of praying to Mecca. Omar's family is much less conservative than his deeply religious brother, and they laugh off his religious arguments. Even Faisal, the most devout of the group, is only obeying laws that his father tells him to obey (and his father is crazy).

* CallASmeerpARabbit: A policeman refers to Omar's Honey Monster costume as a "bear"... [[spoiler: leading to his colleague shooting a fellow runner in a Chewbacca costume instead.]]

* CallASmeerpARabbit: A policeman refers to Omar's Honey Monster costume as a "bear"... leading to his colleague shooting a fellow runner in a Chewbacca costume instead.