By Eric Allen
Bill Maher’s documentary, “Religulous,” opens with a scene of him standing on top of a pile of stones in Megiddo, Israel, where Christians say the second coming of Christ will occur. Except Maher’s teachings fail to be as far-reaching as Jesus’.
Directed by Larry Charles, the man who brought us “Borat,” the documentary seeks to simultaneously inform and entertain, much in the same way “Borat” did (yes, there were lessons to be learned from that movie).
The name of the film is a combination of “religious” and “ridiculous,” meant to verbally prepare audiences for the schooling they will receive via carefully edited sequences of movie clips and interviews.
The film’s last-laugh format is its most entertaining and most unfortunate aspect. Interviews are interrupted with clips from old movies that were meant to mock the subject of the interview, although the selection of clips used was clever.
When Maher questioned an Orthodox Jew about what he can and can’t do on the day of rest, a clip of Frankenstein chanting “fire bad” was neatly slipped in after the interview subject uttered the same words. The mocking would have been foolproof, except that Maher’s questioning was phrased in such a way to elicit a primitive sounding response.
In one of his many on-the-road monologues, Maher examines the absence of scripture about Jesus’ adolescence. What was he like? In the film Maher describes Jesus as an awkward teenager with a Jew-fro. Then the film cuts to a clip of Jonah Hill in “Superbad.”
When speaking with a black reverend about money and image, clips of flamboyant pimps were inevitable.
Despite the all-too-clear intentions of the editing, it is impossible to leave the theatre without thinking the interviewees were somehow misrepresented. Each interview subject, in one way or another, failed to explain his or her religion rationally when confronted with real questions.
It is difficult to determine whether it was Maher’s interviewee selection, mocking questions or the subjects’ own ineptitude that culminated in such a poor representation of organized religion. But then, the interviews were primarily with religious leaders, people who should be able to intelligently defend their respective religions amid Maher’s elementary questions.
His brand of liberal humor was strikingly disproportionate to the subject matter, albeit necessary and almost unavoidable. The religious fundamentalists in the documentary were babbling idiots; any rational thinking person would be laughing along with Maher.
The humor, however, masked the purpose of the film. In his brief monologues, Maher raised actual concern about religious warfare and the need for rational thinking. Except, who could focus on that when the audience is laughing at a clip of “Spartacus” stuck in the middle of an interview with an ex-gay pastor?
Any Maher fan going to see the movie will be elated, but his one-sided, relentless scorn will be a deterrent to people who take themselves and their religion so seriously they can’t endure 101 minutes of his thought-provoking wit.
Those who can, however, will be privileged with the results of Maher’s surprisingly convincing research.
One sequence of the film chronicles the life of the Egyptian god Horus, who had a life similar to Jesus. According to the film, he was born of a virgin, crucified, rose on the third day and healed masses; only, his story was written thousands of years before the Bible.
This kind of information, along with Maher’s call-to-action for liberal, religiously unaffiliated, enlightened individuals to similarly debunk dogmatic fundamentalists, is most likely not what viewers will remember. The film’s audience will almost always be self-assured liberal thinkers who will take more pleasure in mocking religion than using the film to convert their conservative friends.
“Religulous” is currently playing at the Kendall Square Cinema.
