Entertainment

Three guys, a gal and a bomb: not quite dynamite

Hey, Rahim, is that a bomb in your briefs, or are you happy to see us? The title of Jon Kern’s new play should give a clue.

Indeed, it’s option A for Rahim (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a young Pakistani who’s about to embark on a suicide mission to blow up the Empire State Building. As the show opens, he and his accomplice, the Somalian Qala (William Jackson Harper), are discussing highly technical details about how to best set up the package, so to speak.

“The wires are caught in hair,” an annoyed Qala says. “I told you to shave.”

“I hate shaving,” Rahim whines. “I always feel like I have baby-boy balls.”

High-larious, no? The show’s full title alludes to “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” but it’s obvious that Kern, a staff writer on “The Simpsons,” has a sensibility closer to the Farrelly brothers than Stanley Kubrick.

When Rahim argues with Yalda (Nitya Vidyasagar) — the cell’s sole female member, also the smartest — it’s not about the Koran’s finer points, but about whether you can refer to “Star Wars” as “A New Hope.”

Under Peter DuBois’ direction, the show plods along like a fake-edgy, not particularly well-acted sitcom.

Until, that is, the entrance of Jerome, the gang’s upstairs neighbor in their Cobble Hill home. Jerome’s as much of a cartoon as the others, but Kern is better at writing addled goofballs than terrorists.

It also helps that he’s portrayed by the excellent Steven Boyer (“Hand to God,” “School for Lies”), who has an uncanny gift for shifty slackers. It’s like Jeff Spicoli, the iconic surfer dude from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” reimagined as a dumb Brooklyn hipster.

Having stumbled onto the planned attack, Jerome figures his best chance at survival is to join in. The terrorists end up picking up the ingredients for a fertilizer bomb in a Zip car. “My membership usually feels like a waste,” Yalda says. “Until moments like this.”

We’re far from piercing satire and firmly in basic cable land, if only because the targets are fuzzy. Who is Kern making fun of: 20-something Brooklynites? Fanboys? Terrorists? America?

More befuddling is the final violence, as unconvincing as it is unearned. Until then, the would-be radicals haven’t shown any incentive or real rage. Yalda’s husband was killed by an American drone, but she’s more aggrieved over her missing iPod.

As for Rahim, he was shocked into action after flipping channels from war coverage in the news to MTV’s Spring Break. American decadence!

Good thing radicalization usually takes a bit more. Otherwise anybody who’s ever gone from “Frontline” straight to “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” would be stocking up on ammo.