Religulous Review

Documentary Review

Bill Maher, a self-admitted “potty mouthed, pot smoking atheist” created the documentary Religulous in 2008. This movie was his effort to expose the largest organized religions in the world as insane, irrational and destructive. Maher inserts himself into this film in the same way he runs his late night show on Fridays on HBO, “Real Time with Bill Maher”. That show mixes round table discussions that include politicians, Hollywood celebrities and academics with a healthy dose of his monologues from his stand-up comedy routines. And just like in his TV show, Maher appears in almost every shot of Religulous. He often looks straight into the camera and rolls his eyes or feigns shock to show that he and the viewer are connected and share the same opinion. That makes Religulous an interactive documentary, a documentary that is actually more entertainment than it is an exposé of the absurdities of religion.

In Religulous (a combination of the words ‘religion’ and ‘ridiculous’), Maher travels the globe speaking to every kind of religious person, including the devout as well as the hypocritical. He asks them to explain their faith and the nature of their God. Maher claims that he would like to believe in God, but says that no one has been able to say anything intelligent or convincing enough to persuade him. In this movie he talks to shop owners selling “holy” items, small town preachers, televangelists, a man from “Jews for Jesus”, a fundamentalist Christian U.S. Senator, Vatican priests, a religious astrologist, secular Muslims, gay Muslims, Mormons and ex-Mormons in Salt Lake City, and people in Jerusalem and the Arab peninsula. He reveals what is stupid, foolish and narrow-minded in the philosophy of each of these people.  

Although most of the interviewees are pretty harmless as an individual, their total intolerance of anyone with a different view hints at what Maher thinks is the worst aspect of organized religion – black and white thinking – an inability to accept those with an opposing view. There is an apocalyptic thread throughout the movie that reaches a dramatic and terrifying conclusion at the end when a montage of terrorist bombings, mushroom clouds, starving refugees and hate-filled religious demonstrators flash furiously on the screen while Maher does a voice over arguing that religion isn’t just ridiculous, it is fatal. Millions have already suffered and died in the name of various gods he says, and religion will ultimately destroy humanity.

Even so, Religulous is an entertaining movie. At first is certainly seems to give religious people a voice, but really Bill Maher has dealt himself the better hand in these interviews. The people he interviews are easy to scoff at and aren’t capable of putting up much of a fight. Maher doesn’t interview the intellectual heavy hitters of modern religion. He interviews a man who claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ, because he believes that Jesus had children. To main stream Christians this idea is preposterous and presenting a fringe character like this serves to make all Christians look ridiculous. Maher also interviews a priest at the Vatican who must have had one cocktail too many before the interview because all he can do is giggle. The list of silly interviewees goes on. Maher interviews American truckers, in their small chapel in a trailer where each person makes up his own personal brand of Christianity. Maher even went so far as to conduct an interview with the actor who plays Jesus at a Disney-esque theme park called “Holy Land”.  It seems to me that if Maher really wanted to make a point he wouldn’t have interviewed this pathetic crowd of naive people, but he would speak to someone as quick witted and intellectual as himself. Since he did not choose worthy adversaries, he lost an opportunity to spark a conversation about the real place for religion in modern society. Instead he turned the movie into a bunch of cheap shots at the absurdity of religion.

As I mentioned, this is an interactive documentary. Bill Maher is on the screen about 96% of the time. Although it was filmed at various locations around the world, it is basically a series of one-on-one interviews edited together with multiple cuts to B- Roll. Maher also uses inter titles to flash his sarcastic comments and rebuttals onto the screen even as his guests attempt to explain their points of view.

I would recommend Religulous to many of my friends; but frankly if you are religious and a faithful church goer, then do not watch this documentary. Maher goes after every single religion without holding back any punches: Mormons, Muslims, Catholics, Evangelists, Christians and Jews beware. Remember that Maher is famous for his being offensive.  Then again, even church goers confess to getting their fair share of laughs from this documentary. And even though it’s not as effective as it could be, this movie does get the viewer thinking about religion and its place in our century.  If you aren’t too sensitive to this kind of humor, Religulous is a thought provoking and enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

Religulous, 102 minutes R (for language)