Four Lions - NYT Critics' Pick

[lsanderson]

A scene from “Four Lions,” about a set of would-be terrorists.
Harebrained Plans by Half-Wits
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: November 4, 2010

Terrorism is stupid. Terrorists are stupid. It seems to me that these truths have not been sufficiently acknowledged, especially by movies, which tend to imagine terrorists as the diabolically clever authors of complicated conspiracies. But surely the recent historical record suggests that for every extremist mastermind scheming in a cave somewhere, there are innumerable stooges, fools and copycats, their dreams of glory tethered to half-baked ideas and harebrained plots. Incompetence married to zeal is hardly benign — dumb people have done their share of damage in the world — but it can nonetheless be funny. More