Bill Maher’s ‘Religulous’ Not Totally Annoying, Nor Totally Convincing Either

Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ “Religulous” documentary is getting fairly glowing reviews, but these thought must just be on a superficial, almost blind enjoyment level without examining the processes or tactics, no?

We were wondering how to being our review when we read In Contention’s question about the film, they wondered, could it go beyond Maher’s “skewed, incredibly insulting and borderline ignorant stance on the subject of faith and religion?”
Well, but it this way, the glib “Religulous” is a bulldozer of subjectivity and as subtle as a jackhammer. The answer is absolutely not. A hyper-editiorializing and manipulative conceit of cheap-laughs and intensely dismissive put-downs, Maher’s shallow “documentary,” is nothing but a traveling, on-the-road version of his op-ed show, but with laser-beam focus on theology. The message is clear from minute one: If you believe anything at all and aren’t wholeheartedly committed to agnosticism, you’re a fucking idiot who should be treated with abuse and scorn.
Though the self-satisfied Maher can be an unctuous smug fuck, he’s relatively amiable about his bullying in this film to his credit, but it’s the aggravating editorializing asides — subtitles pop up beneath people to disprove their posits, a cackling witch-like laugh is heard when a religious PR woman enters a frame — that are extremely heavy-handed, eye-roll inducing and undo any of film’s aims (or maybe the goal was simply to exploit people and craft them to look like fools). Sure, it’s the religious right and they are kind of nutters (it’s ok to make fun of these people, right?, AMIRITE!?), but doesn’t everybody deserve some form of a fair shot to get their point across? Not in this documentary, and we’re kind of shocked at the unanimously positive reviews that aren’t looking at the artlessness of how this film is constructed.

Almost dangerously partisan, dismissive and one-sided, the filmmakers obviously don’t understand that the most powerful moments in the film are when the simply let jackasses hang themselves with even the most minor amount of rope. Shades of gray? None here. There’s a fantastic little scene with the Senator from Arkansas where Maher’s asks shouldn’t he be worried about people who govern who actually believe in fairytales like Noah’s Ark and the Garden of Eden and after some hemming and hawing, the politician finally blurts out, “You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” The camera whip pans to Maher’s aghast and shocked look and then goes back to the Senator who has a classic, “Oh shit, what did I just say” look. It’s a hilarious moment that speaks for itself, but sequences like this are few and far between.

Granted, the Charles-directed documentary, can be amusing at times, but most of the time it’s his own propaganda at the cheap expense of a hapless bystander who probably deserves a little better. Though similarly manipulative in its untruthful tactics, “Borat,” satire, is still 100 times more clever and artfully designed in a way to comment on society on a level that Maher’s film can’t hope to even skim. “The Daily Show” similarly does this kind of skewering in a far more bright and incisive manner every day of the week.
The grand irony of Maher’s concluding “Religulous,” monologue is it seemingly powerful finale, is it uses the same melodramatic and over-the-top fire and brimstone scare tactics to push its anti-religous agenda as the fundamentalist wackjobs have also been wielding throughout. And isn’t the whole point to be above that? To better than that ludicrousness and use our rational thought – something we’ve been implored to use the entire film? Silly, slight and frivolous. [C+]