Ong-Bak 3 is apparently Tony Jaa's final film, at least for the foreseeable future. He doesn't go out with a bang, but at least he puts forth a manful effort to make a real movie and not just a stunt reel. Is that still progress when the stunt reel films (The Protector, Ong-Bak 1) are actually more fun?
Containing more Buddist themes then asskicking (by not just a little bit, a whole lot) would normally doom a movie like this to being dreadfully boring, but for some reason I couldn't dislike this film's obviously very sincere and ham handed moralizing. Its about the corrosive nature of revenge, and while its far from presented in the most palatable way, it kinda works. Kinda like how On Deadly Ground is still fun to watch despite all the lecturing. That there's some ace level brutality bookending the very long redemptive second act helps a lot.
** and three quarters *
Four Lions is fucking hilarious. Essentially its a only seemingly dumb slapstick comedy about a pack of very dim wannabe suicide bombers in England as they prepare themselves for their holy mission. Along the way they take disastrous detours through training camp, polite British society, religious intolerance, and inconveniently volatile explosives. That the comedy is so broad and the characters so cartoonish the grim and horrifying reality of their aspirations are successfully occluded, at least until the last act, which manages to be funny, wrenching, and suspenseful.
It doesn't look like a satire, it looks and feels like a dumb comedy. But by the end it grows in power and becomes better (and smarter) then any film with this many punchlines would be counted on. Will they succeed in their plan to blow up the internet? Tune in to find out.
***1/2
