But Morrisâ?? precision as co-writer and director finds echoes of Dr. Strangelove , as well as a form of transcendence in the ridiculous.
Relating Four Lions to the brilliant Dr. Strangelove (1964) -- as some have -- is like relating a firecracker to a nuclear weapon.
We knew watching Dr. Strangelove that the crazed military types, George C. Scott’s Buck Turgidson and Sterling Hayden’s Jack D. Ripper, were liberal punching bags.
He even shows how the official response will be at once a whitewash and an encouragement to the conspiracy-prone future generation of jihadists: 'The police shot the right man," intones a government official, summoning the black tone of Dr. Strangelove, 'but the wrong man exploded."…
I'm certainly not making the comparison, but Four Lions has the balls of a Network, a Dr. Strangelove, and a M*A*S*H.