Religulous

There was a span of about 5 years where Bill Maher and his show, Politically Incorrect, was appointment television for me. I thought that man was hilarious, polarizing, charismatic and asked interesting and thought provoking questions. Then, the show was cancelled and I lost my interest in the man. I think it was two years later when I stumbled on a stand up special of his and after about 3 minutes concluded he had lost it. Nothing was easier at the time than jokes about Priests and young boys, but the entire section I saw was full of those easy jokes. My other point of view going into this movie, is known to those who know me, but for anyone justs tumbling onto this review blog, I should fully disclose that I grew up Mormon (I no longer affiliate with it) and religion has long been an interest of mine.

As far as documentaries go this is a pretty straight forward one. Bill Maher hates religion and interviews people to find out why people buy into it. He talks to Christians, Muslims and Jews. He talks to a Catholic Cardinal, ex-Mormons, Ex-Jews for Jesus, Muslim leaders, a Muslim rapper, Jewish Rabbis and even a guy who believes he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. He talks to black ministers, reformed Gays, Gay Muslims, scientists and a guy who plays Jesus in a reenactment at the Jesus version of Disneyland. He also talks to random people on the street and gets kicked out of the Vatican and The Mormon Temple Square. Maher is a funny interviewer although very combative at times and yes, he is out to trick his interview subjects.

Religulous plays like Borat crossed with Michael Moore movies. Maher attacks easy marks like Borat and incorporates music, cartoons, subtitles and clips from existing sources to make his point in the way Moore does. If you go back and see my Borat review, or have had discussions with me about Borat, you would know, my biggest issue with the movie, aside from not being funny in any way, is that Borat attacked easy targets. We all knew that homophobia exists in the south and that frat boys are misogynistic. When Maher opened this movie talking to a group of Christian Truckers, I thought, "Oh great, here we go again." The fundamental issue with intelligent conversation or debate on religion is that religion is not based in intelligence. That is not to say that only idiots subscribe to religion, it is saying that people who have faith, are led by their faith and not facts trying to prove or not prove the existence of God. It is easy for Maher to make people who have faith look stupid and it is easy for "I have faith" to be a cop-out in a debate. This presents a problem for Maher's interview tactics. He does land some nice punches and he gets people to say stupid things like a U.S Senator saying "You don't have to takes an I.Q test to be a senator."

What Maher should have focused more energy on is the hypocrisy of the commercialization of religion. When he goes there he scores great laughs and great points. He confronts a minister who wears $2,000.00 dollar suits, has lizard skin boots and thousands of dollars worth of bling and wonders if Jesus would be happy about it. The highlight of the movie was the Catholic Cardinal who admitted he hated the excess of the Vatican. The guy was funny, honest and humble. He seemed to "get" his faith in a way so many do not. Maher does contradict himself in one moment though, that bugged me. Maher spends a lot of the movie trying to convince Christians that the bible is a dated book, that it contains things that no longer apply and that to believe 100% something from a book written so long ago maybe is not the best way to go. He makes the point "What else from those ages do we still use?" Well, nothing really. However, when a Muslim woman tells him that she believe the violence spouted by Muhammad was meant only for the days of Muhammad, Maher attacks her by saying, Well the book says it is to be. Maher tries to have it be both ways. Here is an intelligent and peaceful Muslim woman who buys into the theory he spouted to the Christians and he has to attack her. It doesn't work.

Of course, Maher is preaching to the choir in this movie because no real religious person is going to watch it. He makes the point repeatedly that the story of Jesus follows countless ancient myths, like Horus and that religion is man-made solely. Maher doesn't believe in God and he has problems with God because he asks those all too frequent questions "Why would God allow the Holocaust to happen" Or "Why would 9-11 happen?" These are important questions to non-believers and the only answer faith based people can give is that we can never understand God's will. For Maher, those kinds of answers are not even close to sufficient. Towards the end of the movie, Maher loses that sense of humor and goes for the jugular in two impressively written and even more impressively delivered rants aimed square at not just people of faith, but people who do not have faith, but refuse to challenge faith based people. Maher is angry and eloquent all at the same time and his message is clear: Religion, with its violence, intolerance and hypocrisy, is dangerous. If God was not involved any group who practiced such blatant homophobia, violence and monetary hypocrisy would be considered a blight on mankind.

I do want to mention that Religulous is a very funny and interesting movie. I did not mean for this to turn solely on religion, but I also want to say that Maher was not exactly fair and balanced here. He did get intelligent men to debate him and Maher did hold his own and at times best people, but Maher spends an awful long amount of time grouping religion into religious fanaticism. Not all people of faith are out for blood and not all people of faith are homophobic. The religions may have homophobia engraved in the tenets, but not all people who subscribe to religion are fanatics and I am not sure that group was represented well in Maher's skewering of religion. Bill Maher makes so many great points, but at times, he is does get lost in his own mission. Of course, there are times when he doesn't even have to make the jokes because the jokes just happen, like two theme parks- one based solely around the Crucifixion and another by a faith based group out to explain science and the bible co-existing by having animitronic dinosaurs right next to anamitronic children. Those jokes can't be written folks!

Final Grade: B