Religulous

Review by Jason Donner

 

Bill Maher is out to expose religion for the sham that it is.  After reading that sentence, your reaction is likely one of two things: One, you are offended and angry or two, you are up on your feet and applauding that someone finally has the guts to do it. 

Me, I'm in the middle.  I haven't really stepped foot in a church for years and really don't see the value in organized religion, but instead have adopted a very comfortable stance that neither I nor anyone else in this world really knows anything about anything.  I'm content with questions, not answers to questions that just can't be answered.

in Religulous, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher travels all over the globe speaking to religiously minded folk about their beliefs.  Maher visits a creation science museum, Bibleland in Florida, and anywhere else he can find a whacko or two.

Therein lies the rub: Maher focuses too much on the fruitcakes and is quick to point out the fallacies in the arguments of the completely flawed zealots who walk the Earth.  I'm fairly certain that if Bill had met a genuine and learned theologian in his travels, his snarky attitude and "holier than thou" stance would have had a rather large chunk knocked out of it.

Despite the one-sided viewpoints and the parade of carefully selected nutballs that are supposed to represent religiously-minded of the entire Earth, Religulous is genuinely funny if a bit unfair.  Here, Maher is preaching to the converted and hasn't made so much as a ding in the stone pillars of organized religion.

Maher doesn't do his side that many favors either as his dry and sardonic sense of humor coupled with his superior attitude is definitely off-putting.  The message is fine, it's the messenger that has the problem.

Religulous, despite its problems, is eye-opening, funny, and frightening in some ways.  It's not a call to godlessness, but more of a call for common sense and embracing questions rather than answers which detracts from some of its meanness and stereotyping.

If only it wasn't for the premeditated low blows, this movie would have been so much greater.