‘Religulous’: Skewering of religion works best as comedy
Published 6:32 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
It might help to think of “Religulous” as a comedy rather than a spiritual inquiry, or even a documentary. This is Bill Maher, riffing like crazy on a thesis near and dear to his heart: the harmful place of religion in today’s world.
As a documentary, the movie has its mind made up from the start, and presents its interviews as an excuse for Maher to bulldoze a series of believers, many of them easy targets.
As a comedy, this all plays uproariously. Maher is a skillful improviser and a fearless interviewer, which means his movie mixes discomfort and laughs with regularity.
Maher has two arguments. His biggest goal is to point out that most religions are based on myths and legends that have little place in the real, scientific world. To that end, he confronts religious representatives with examples of the zanier bits from the Old and New Testament, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and the secrets of Scientology.
Maher’s other argument is that religion is responsible for a large part of mankind’s woes, and that the planet is going to blow itself up if we don’t rid ourselves of religious teachings. That’s a large subject, well beyond Maher’s grasp — as he proves in an ill-advised sermon at the climax of the picture.
Among the stops Maher makes in his journey: a mobile truckers’ chapel, a Miami ministry run by a self-proclaimed direct descendent of Jesus, an Orlando theme park called Holy Land Experience (where he converses with the dude playing Jesus), and the Amsterdam street corner where filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim fanatic.
Outside the Vatican, Maher talks with a free-thinking priest who basically agrees that anybody taking the Bible as literal truth is making a serious mistake. It’s one of the few encounters in which Maher looks genuinely surprised and receptive.
Despite the good zingers, this feels like a missed opportunity for Maher. It doesn’t help that director Larry Charles (the man who guided “Borat,” if anybody can be said to have guided Sacha Baron Cohen in that film) seems to use some creative editing to make the interviewees look ridiculous.
When you have preachers in $2,000 suits declaring that Jesus promoted material wealth, or a museum of “creationism” that includes dioramas of humans interacting with dinosaurs, you don’t need too much extra mockery. “Religulous” takes too many easy paths, but if Maher’s goal was to sow the seeds of doubt, he should succeed.
