Four Lions

 Chris Morris is probably best known to the world as Denholm Reynholm, the high-intensity CEO in The IT Crowd's first season, before he was killed off and replaced by national treasure (treasurr-eh!) Matt Berry. But at least in the UK, Morris came to (semi-)popularity as the main driving force behind a show called Brass Eye, a fake news show full of (then) current-events satire and absurdist humor. Do seek it out, it's great.

 The show had a habit of lampooning moral outrage and media-fuelled panic. However, it ended in 2001... so it never got to do a show about terrorism.
 Morris corrected that nearly a decade later by writing and directing Four Lions, a film about incompetent would-be Jihadists based out of  Sheffield dead set on blowing up... something, they can't agree what. It's an absolutely pitch-black comedy; Despite leavening it with a ton of absurdism and very silly humor, almost fifteen years on there are few blacker.

Tiny Nandor!

 The four lions are: Omar (Riz Ahmed), the idealist straight man of the group, whose loving family supports his suicide bomber aspirations - he talks about it with his wife (Preeya Kalidas) as if he were discussing the possibility of  a promotion at work. Waj (Kayvan Novak) describes himself as thick as fudge, and yes, he absolutely is. A total sweetheart, though. Barry (Nigel Lindsay), an all-British muslim who's the most volatile (pun not intended) and gung-ho of the group. Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), a quiet, shy idiot who's convinced he can train crows to become flying bombs. And finally Hassan (Arsher Ali), a young convert who joins the cell during the movie - he's the young eager padawan.
 Yes, I know that's five - one of the lions suffers from premature detonation before the grand finale.

 Their journey includes a trip to contact Al-Qaeda in Pakistan (where the immortal words 'floppy camel sphincter' are uttered in rage), a whole lot of planning and bomb manufacture, a shitload of bickering, and the eventual climactic terrorist attack.

 There's a pervasive sense of doom to the whole arc, which ends up turning Waj, a deeply cartoony creation, into an almost tragic figure. Not bad for a character who keeps comparing the afterlife to rubber dinghy rapids; The poor, sweet idiot.

 It cleaves to the Brass Eye ethos in that everyone is a moron - the authorities, when they do respond, manage to fuck things up almost as spectacularly as our heroes.

 The film remains as bracing, timely and unique as when it came out. In a world that's on its twenty-sixth South Park season, I'm always disappointed to find out how little-remembered this movie is; I'd hesitate to even say it's reached cult status.

 If nothing else, it's a trove of great quotes, funny jokes and running gags, brilliant turns of phrase, and ridiculous, hilarious conceits, all served with a still sharp edge and some affection for its characters. That should ensure it a better legacy than most of the Judd Apatow-influenced shit that was rampant at the time.