Religulous
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hours, 41 minutes
Directed by: Larry Charles
Starring: Bill Maher
I did not expect to like Religulous. As a faithful viewer of Real Time with Bill Maher, I find his anti-religion tirades boring, predictable, and childish. When I heard that he was going to make an entire movie about his stance against religion, it seemed like it would be an extremely repetitive movie that would suck off fellow atheists for ninety minutes.
But Maher has happily surprised me with a film that is not only non-atheist (it's anti-certainty in any form) but delightfully light-hearted in its approach by having Maher's snide temperament perfectly tempered by Larry Charles skillful direction. If not for a disastrous closing argument, Religulous would be a monumental success.
The film mainly consists of Maher talking with leaders and followers of every major western religion and pointing out the ridiculous contradictions. The film's skill doesn't come through Maher pointing out obviously ludicrous beliefs (talking snake, Noah's ark), but by showing how little of their own religion its own followers understand and how that religion is delivered to its followers. Charles found an untapped wealth of comic gold with every kids religious video that attempts to deliver the mythology of a religion in animated form.
However, due to its repetitive nature of going from one religion, pointing out its silly tenants, and then moving on to the next religion and its silly tenants, the film begins to run out of steam by the end. This lack of energy then leads into the film kicking into overdrive and going completely off the rails as Charles and Maher believe that religion is leading us to the end times and it's the responsibility of religious moderates, atheists, and agnostics to stop the evil of religion lest it kill us all. This was the attitude I feared the film would have throughout and thankfully it's only for the closing argument. But it's a completely unearned argument as we're left with questions of why religion is the great evil and not nationalism or climate change or corporate greed. And if you want to set up religion as a threat, you have to make it look more than silly; you have to make it look scary and the film (wisely) goes for laughs rather than horror.
Bill Maher has made a much better film than I expected and for that I give him full marks. His abrasive personality is balanced by Charles whimsical direction and I would love to see another collaboration by the two in the future. I'm not sure how many people this film will convince to become actively anti-religious but I'm sure it will at least amuse most audiences that are willing to keep an open mind and enjoy religion's sillier side (even if Maher thinks that's religion's only side).
Words by
Matt Goldberg
10.3.08