Director: Christopher Morris
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 1.0
Clever concept (a comedy about wanna-be terrorists!) ... but the execution is dreadful (pardon the pun). Several British 'citizens' - slummy, dumb-ass Ali G-infected goons - decide they hate society and want to do their part in waging jihad against, well, everyone because that's what the script says they want to do. Almost anything can be made funny, but this is too broad and grizzly and inane to work: for starters, the lead character, Omar (Riz Ahmed) strikes me as being too 'sane' to be a plausible assassin (not once does his wife try to talk him out of his mission nor does he worry about leaving her behind; he doesn't begin to consider his beloved son's feelings) and when it finally gets down to the 'heroes' detonating themselves into gristle and organs (at one point, collected in a garbage bag), it just becomes kind of sad to watch. Morris and company want to mock the ideologically confused 'baddies' as dopes and tag-alongs, and in reality many of them probably are, but even stupid people, dubious motives and all, can be incredibly dangerous. Some lines snap (I like the debate between the snipers as to whether or not Chewbacca can be classified as a 'bear'), but a few scattered, jolly quips don't make a movie.
