I Can't Wait (Chris Morris Film)

[Adrian Bamforth]

//http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3177654.ece

CHRIS MORRIS, the satirist whose television act features jokes about paedophilia, drugs, incest and rape, is to make a movie intended to show the funny side of terrorism.

He says the film will seek to do for Islamic terrorism what Dad's Army, the classic BBC comedy, did for the Nazis by showing them as "scary but also ridiculous".

Morris said: "Most of us would dearly love to laugh in the face of our worst fears. Why aren't we laughing at terrorists? Because we don't know how to, until now."

Though the film is a work of fiction, Morris has researched it over the past two years by visiting places in Britain associated with terrorist plots, including Leeds, Bradford and Luton.

"I don't plan for this film to be offensive, but I do want it to be very funny," Morris said. "I accept, though, that some may find poking fun at terrorists is offensive.

"There is this Dad's Army side of terrorism and that's what this film is exploring," said Morris, who once, while hosting a Radio 1 show, made a hoax announcement about the death of Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister.

The film, to be shot in the spring, takes as its premise that terrorists are "scary but also ridiculous", according to the synopsis.

It will use some real absurdities around Islamist terrorism as its basis. It cites Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 attacks, who, after inviting a journalist to a secret location in Pakistan to record a tell-all interview about 9/11, spent two hours trying to select clothes that would avoid making him looking fat.

At terror training camps, young jihadists argue about honey, accidentally shoot off one another's feet or get thrown out for smoking. Back in Britain, they spend evenings having rows over whose turn it is to do the washing-up.

In Hamburg the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta ran discussion groups that were so strict that everybody left them. "Terrorism isn't about religion, it is about berks," says the summary of the film.

The leader of a British terrorist cell mistakes a gram of triace-tone triperoxide (TATP), used in the 2005 London bombings, for a line of cocaine, and snorts it.

According to Morris, terrorists have all-too human foibles and weaknesses, and for much of the time live what passes for normal life. "This film will hopefully get over that terrorists do what we all do," said Morris, whose Brass Eye show, broadcast in 2001 on Channel 4, made jokes about paedophilia and lampooned celebrities who want to help child abuse victims.

"They discuss the mundane, and plan things that sometimes then go wrong. People, that is viewers, are longing to laugh at terrorism."

Few British comedians have dared to poke fun at Islamic terrorism, and if it backfires, Morris faces greater risk than when he attacked show business stars and politicians. However, in a recent article he likened Martin Amis, the novelist, to Abu Hamza, the hook-handed Muslim cleric, for "forging an incoherent creed of hate" against Muslims.

It will be Morris's first feature film, and the £4m budget will be met partly by Channel 4 as well as by Warp Films, which last year released the acclaimed film This Is England.

Morris, whose early career included a stint as a pompous anchor on a BBC news spoof, got the idea for the film after reading details of Operation Crevice. This was the name given to the raids launched by the police in 2004 on terrorist suspects in the south of England.

The police found a biscuit tin filled with aluminium powder, ammonium nitrate in bags of dried fruit and other bomb ingredients behind a garden shed. "It was almost unbelievable," said Morris. "But it all happened. Terrorists will also discuss the most ordinary of things. I found out, for example, that jihadists like reading the views of Jeremy Clarkson but not those of Richard Littlejohn [a tabloid newspaper columnist]."

Morris used two scriptwriters from the BBC television satire, The Thick of It, to help write the movie. Morris himself will direct it, though he will not act in it.

[Peter Wolf]

I have got mixed feelings about this for various reasons.I like satire and i have a certain amount of time for Chris Morris but sometimes he makes his points a bit crudely and is a little bit juvenile at times.

 I think extremist muslims are fair game for having the piss taken out of them as they are idiots but ultimatly its not funny.

 I have already laughed at ,written about , taken the piss out of etc this topic and i dont need Chris morris to tell me its alright to do so Now because he is making a satirical film about it.I already know how to.

 There is so much about this subject and the problem - reaction - solution of  terrorism and government and 9/11 that could and should be satirised.

 The ironic thing is of course that the real or imaginary terrorists are or would probably be laughing [metaphorically speaking] at us now because of all the legislation and loss of civil liberties in the UK and the US since 9/11.So in that sense the terrorists have won.

 Chris Morris is having a go but no one else is and i cant wait for the knee jerk reactions and Fatwas against it.

 Muslim Extremists dont understand humour ,satire or irony.Its not part of their culture.

[Peter Wolf]

A  satirical film called Wag The Dog [1997] is well worth seeing  as its very relevant to this subject.

[TordelBack]

Heh, I'd give Morris the benefit of the doubt, he's earned it - this could be great.  Except I'm not sure it's actually the Nazis that Dad's Army lampoons - they don't show up very often at all, unlike the stalwarts of the British middle classes that headline each week.  

And yes, watching Kosovo unfold after watching Wag the Dog was indeed a bizarre experience.

[dyl]

As long as he remembers to make it funny. On the hour, Day Today and Brass Eye were all great with loads of laugh out loud funny bits in them as well as being great satire. I haven't been that impressed with a lot of the stuff he's done since then. I found jam really patchy sometimes too clever/artsy and it could also be too juvenile. I only managed a few eps of Nathan Barly, again, just wasn't that funny, should have been great as I really like Charlie Brooker's Guardian columns too.
It'd be great if all the On the Hour/ Day Today group could get together again I think that was the funniest stuff by far.

[Roger Godpleton]

I remember Charlie Brooker did an interview about Nathan Barley where he talked about how people complained that they didn't hate Barley enough and how he had to explain that they weren't really supposed to it. I would probably agree that the main problem with the show was the fact that it focused too much on the title character, who was probably only ever meant to function as an archytype, to the detriment of Julian Barratt's lead character.

My Wrongs was just shit, and he was blatantly phoning it in The IT Crowd.

[Peter Wolf]

Go to Youtube and search for White alQuaeda [AKA Bullshit] and watch the video as it is like a spoof/satire but its from Fox[faux] News which is like the Day Today .

 Its very funny.

 Does real ? life imitate satire or does satire imitate real life ? .

[SamuelAWilkinson]

Does real  life imitate satire or does satire imitate real life ?

Quite clearly the latter; that's why it's satire.

NEXT!

[Adrian Bamforth]

The ironic thing is of course that the real or imaginary terrorists are or would probably be laughing [metaphorically speaking] at us now because of all the legislation and loss of civil liberties in the UK and the US since 9/11.So in that sense the terrorists have won.quote]

Nah I don't think they attack us to make our lives more inconvenienced, it's more to do with killing Jews and Westerners to get into heaven.

If anything life has become more inconvenienced for people from Islamic nations. I'm sure just as many will argue that there's too much liberty for people associated with terrorism and that they are laughing about they are able to go wherever they like and dodge justice.

[Peter Wolf]

The ironic thing is of course that the real or imaginary terrorists are or would probably be laughing [metaphorically speaking] at us now because of all the legislation and loss of civil liberties in the UK and the US since 9/11.So in that sense the terrorists have won.quote]

Nah I don't think they attack us to make our lives more inconvenienced, it's more to do with killing Jews and Westerners to get into heaven.

If anything life has become more inconvenienced for people from Islamic nations. I'm sure just as many will argue that there's too much liberty for people associated with terrorism and that they are laughing about they are able to go wherever they like and dodge justice.

 [in reference to the above line] You are absolutely correct with that observation which can be applied to Muslim Extremists and the UK/US governments respectively.

[Mardroid]

Except I'm not sure it's actually the Nazis that Dad's Army lampoons - they don't show up very often at all, unlike the stalwarts of the British middle classes that headline each week.  

Agreed. When the germans did turn up in Dad's army they were actually fairly scary.

'Allo, allo, on the other hand.... that poked fun of all of us.