A “full” trailer for Chris Morris‘ Four Lions appeared on 3.26. The film still has no U.S. distributor, and one reason (apart from the obvious primary one) may be that eternal bugaboo known as indecipherable lower-class British accents. As Film Drunk puts it, perhaps it’s “just too British. Get it, guv? It’s funny cuz da blokes is just standin’ roun’ lookin at each ovvaz ow awkward loikes, innit. An’ den da lorrie droivah fell off da lift an’ ruined da bobby’s jumpah!”

My 1.24 Sundance dispatch: “Early last evening I saw Chris Morris‘s Four Lions — an unsettling, at times off-putting, at other times genuinely amazing black political comedy about London-based Jihadists — Islamic radicalism meets the Four Stooges/Keystone Cops. It’s sometimes shocking and sometimes heh-heh funny, and occasionally hilarious.

“Morris uses a verbal helter-skelter quality reminiscent of In The Loop, and yet the subject is appalling — a team of doofuses who dream of bombing and slaughtering in order to enter heaven and taste the fruit of virgins. It’s amazing and kind of pleasing that a comedy of this sort has been made, but I don’t want to think about the reactions in Manhattan once it opens.

“At times it felt flat and frustrating (I couldn’t understand half of it due to the scruffy British accents) and at other times I felt I was watching something akin to Dr. Strangelove — ghastly subject matter leavened with wicked humor. An agent I spoke to after the screening said, “I don’t know if the American public is ready for this film.” He’s probably right, but Four Lions is an absolute original — I’ve never seen anything like it, nor have I have ever felt so torn in my reactions. I’d love to see it again, but with subtitles.”