When 14 percent of Americans report not having a religion, a movie about the topic seems appropriate. And leave it to Bill Maher to tackle the project.
“Religulous” (rhymes with “ridiculous”) is a comedic documentary about religion – its traditions, conflictions and flaws. Maher, famous for his comedy routines that trash talk religion and everything else on the right, treks across the country trying to find out why people believe in the talking snake and the man in the sky. He interviews leaders from various religions, asking them about the discrepancies tucked into the dogma. And he doesn’t discriminate. Poking fun at Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology, Islam and Catholicism, Maher puts out the message that all religions are created equal – and they’re all retarded.
Often Maher doesn’t say much – he lets the interview clips heave the message for him. The fake working title for “Religulous” was “A Spiritual Journey,” which allowed Maher to gain interviews with religious leaders who probably wouldn’t have agreed to be in his movie otherwise. In one clip, a public relations agent pops up and demands the interview be cut short, saying she didn’t know the interview was for Maher’s movie. It’s moments like these that give the movie its magic.
Directed by Larry Charles, responsible for “Borat,” “Religulous” captures some incredibly funny moments. And the interviews are from people who seem to parody whatever religion they’re supposed to represent. The movie is consistently funny – laugh-out-loud moments are crammed so close it’s hard to go more than five minutes without slipping into a belly laugh.
And Maher does a pretty good job of pulling out and capturing human stupidity. Many of the religious leaders interviewed had a loose grip on facts. Others couldn’t argue against flaws found in the Bible and thus resorted to praying.
But because the movie targets religion as a whole, its message is often spread thin. It rarely points out anything deep. Those moments happen but then the movie quickly marches on to the next joke.
And in the end, Maher starts to lose his audience when he launches a last-ditch-fire-and-brimstone rant that calls for the destruction of religion altogether lest it destroy the world. Charging religion for the Iraq War, Maher is too heavy handed with his approach, even when he’s preaching to the choir.
Religion, according to Maher, undermines science and stirs religious warfare. It’s a message that’s been gaining traction lately, and if this movie doesn’t spark intelligent thought, it will at least inspire a couple of watercooler conversations.