Four Lions

I'm a big fan of the work of Chris Morris. As far as I am concerned he is one of the few people who actually gets what satire should be - topical, biting, true to life and, if need be, cruel. So it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch his film on suicide terrorism - Four Lions.

The basic idea behind is both striking and spot-on. The reality is that jihadists are not the sort of robotic, fundamentalist warriors depicted in many TV shows and films. They are often inept, shallow and very human. More often that not terrorism - and not just Islamic terrorism - succeeds more through luck than judgment. This is what Four Lions showed in detail - the contradictions of the bombers, their inability to agree on just about anything, and the fact that their bombings were a farce from beginning to end. In a country where many see an ruthless army of Islamic militants waiting to be awakened, this film depicts a scenario far closer to reality - a bunch of incompetents, largely ignorant of the religion they are meant to be fighting for, succeeding in creating death and confusion only after their hastily conceived plan goes wrong.

The odd thing about the film, though, is just how tame it is. The first half of the film - right up until the suicide bombing of a sheep - feels a lot like an episode of Last of the Summer Wine with added cussing and nail bombs. Yes, I get that it is meant to be exploring the mundanity of those involved in the plot, but the end result is that the film seems very sedate and, at times, almost meandering and unengaging. The fact that these people are incompetents doesn't mean that their attempts to produce bombs should be devoid of tension. See Zero Day for a film that deals far more effectively with people both living normal life and simultaneously gearing up for a killing spree.

The film only really comes to life in the final third, as the "plan" (such as it is) goes into action, and then almost immediately falls apart. The heavy handed, lethal policing, the general incompetence of the bombers and the fact that their attack ultimately ends up being confused and unable to hit their actual targets makes for a very watchable piece of cinema - simultaneously tense, funny, uncomfortable and an accurate representation of the idea that neither terrorists nor police are ever truly in control of these sort of events. Its a shame that the rest of the film couldn't have been like the final third.

It is also a shame that the biting edge to much of Morris's work is missing here. It is almost as if he has decided that making a film about suicide bombing is enough - the controversy is a given, and therefore he doesn't have to raise his game. Which makes this, overall, a bit of a missed opportunity. This film didn't - and couldn't, really, given its structure - provoke the sort of reaction and debate as his paedophile Brasseye special did. What would have been far more effective is to do the whole thing as a Brasseye or The Day Today news flash about an ongoing terrorist incident occurring on the day of the London Marathon, complete with inappropriate media observations, ghoulish reporting, nonsense emerging from the police and garbled videos emerging from the bombers - amateurishly shot and utterly confused as to the actual motivations behind the bombings. That would have been edgy, clever and controversial satire. That would have been vintage Morris. Which, sadly, Four Lions - as good as it was in places - was not.

The Ghost

On Saturday, on the way to a wedding where there was a surplus of booze and a complete absence of soft drinks or water, I saw an advert for the Robert Harris novel The Ghost. And it said at the bottom of the ad "DESTROY AFTER READING". No doubt this was to provoke a mental image of the book as a highly controversial threat to national security, or something similar. However, having read the book, I can say I am half-tempted to destroy it. Not because I think it is a threat to national security or any similar guff, but rather because it wasn't very good.

The plot itself is partly the problem - whislt there are some exciting moments, the book as a whole is about a dislikable ghost writer writing a book about dislikable characters. The plot is almost entirely predictable. You know from the outset that someone is guilty and that the suicide was almost certainly a murder. You know it is all going to be about the War on Terror, and the unpleasant underbelly of that conflict. And most of the book is about someone writing up that story - so we are seeing the events second hand, through the jaundiced eyes of a ghost writer. And by the time I reached the final *twist*, I no longer cared about any of these characters and their silly little lives.

Part of this is probably because I have read, and very much enjoyed, other Robert Harris novels. So my expectations for this one were very, very high. And fundamentally, a book about a ghostwriter trying to hit a tight deadline lacks the raw excitement of an attempt to expose the Holocaust in an alternate history where the US is about to make peace with the Nazi empire. Or a book where there is an attempt to find Stalin's son by hardline communists who are determined to restore Stalinism to Russia. But there is another problem. On some levels, The Ghost seems to want to operate as a satire - a satire on Blair, on the War on Terror, on Nu Labour and the tragic death of Dr David Kelly. And in that attempt at satire, more than anything else, is where the novel fails for me.

The book is so lumpen with the references to famous people that Harris should have just dropped any pretence of this being fiction, and instead called Adam Lang "Tony Blair". The book as a whole felt like a pedestrian novelisation of The Trial of Tony Blair - without the humour, but with the same commitment to the leaden satire that would embarrass a student union revue.

Satire works better when it takes reality, and corrupts it enough to make it outrageous but still recognisable. And - crucially - the characters need to be distinct and stand up in their own right. Francis Urquhart works so well as a satirical character as he is recognisable as a ruthless politician, but also has a distinct and interesting personality as well. He is not any particular member of the then Tory government, but he does represent the darkest elements of that government, and magnifies them to create a character who is both nightmarish and compelling. Likewise, Alan B'stard is an outrageous satire - an unbelievable, amoral character who is somehow still likable and worth watching. He represents the very worst of eighties greed and malice, but is not anyone in particular. The Ghost fails in part because the Lang character is Tony Blair in all but name, and after enduring 10 years of Blair I know I am not alone in never wanting to hear about him again, and not giving the first crap about whether a character based on him lives or dies.

There is a great satire about the Blair years; it is called The Think of It. The Ghost tries, and fails, to better that.