Religulous Review
by Jerry Saravia (Faust668 AT msn DOT com)October 20th, 2009
RELIGULOUS (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Three stars
Bill Maher is a radical leftist comedian who has taken his radical political views quite far on his vastly entertaining show, "Real Time with Bill Maher." Religion is a hot-button issue for him, mainly because he thinks it is silly for people to believe in a space god. I am not sure if religion is a concept he is willing to invest more highly in - he treats it as a joke and thinks people are stupid if they believe. He is an aggressive atheist but maybe not aggressive enough. I have a feeling that is why he made "Religulous," a funny, observant and very uneven documentary. Uneven because Bill Maher has a habit of not listening closely enough and interrupting those whom he interviews.
Bill Maher begins the global journey in an effort to understand religion and why many believe in God. He travels to a North Carolina truck stop chapel where one of the truckers walks out in disgust at Maher's comments. Another trucker comments on being a former Satanist priest (!) who found God. We also get a Puerto Rican named Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who believes he is the Second Coming of Christ largely due to a bloodline of descendants from Jesus Christ. In addition, we get an actor playing Jesus at a Florida Biblical amusement park, which includes a whipping of a bloodied Christ carrying the cross accompanied by applause from the audience; ex- Mormons questioning Joseph Smith as a leader; an Amsterdam club where marijuana is smoked but not as a sacrament (this segment confused me but who knows, they were all probably high); a gay Muslim bar; a far too short segment on the late film director Theo Van Gogh who made a film that offended Muslims and was killed for it; a rabbi who denies the Holocaust, and so much more. Interspersed throughout the film are clips from old Jesus flicks and George C. Scott as Abraham in the hysterical John Huston film, "The Bible" (there is also a funny clip from "Superbad.")
Most of "Religulous" is very funny but I can't say it is all sharply observed or on-target. The truck stop chapel footage could've been better served had it been towards the end. Some segments deserve more focus, particularly the ex-Mormon bit, the comparison between Abraham sacrificing his son for God to a recent murder of five children by their mother ("God told me to do it"), more scenes of Bill Maher's late mother and her sharing in her son's concept of doubt, and the concept of original sin and why Jesus Miranda believes sinning no longer exists (that was a howler).
What does work is when Bill Maher asks truly valid questions. Why does the Old Testament not talk about the virgin birth? Why no written text exists on Jesus's teenage years? Why a certain preacher believes that Jesus was a rich man and why he can't get that old camel and the needle quote correct? I also liked Maher's observations on miracles and when rain is simply rain. Also interesting is seeing the area of Meggido and how it seems an unlikely location for the end of days.
As I said, "Religulous" is damn funny stuff and invigorating and illuminating. But it needed sharper questions from Maher about the validity of religion and how and why it shapes people's lives, particularly when the concept of sin is often omitted. Maybe it scares Bill to get too deep or maybe he had already made up his mind about religion before he even made the film.
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