Oct 2, 2008 9:58 am US/Pacific
'Religulous'
NEW YORK (AP) ―
Bill Maher is preaching to the choir with this documentary that dissects organized religion, but he's doing it in his laceratingly funny, typically sardonic way.
The comic has touched on this topic often in his standup act and on his HBO talk show "Real Time With Bill Maher," but here he goes on a full, focused attack, and pretty much no one emerges unscathed (except those who practice Eastern religions, for some reason).
If you're an atheist or an agnostic, you'll be completely on board and happy to tag along with Maher as he travels the globe asking people about their faith -- everywhere from Jerusalem and the Vatican to a truckers' chapel in Raleigh, N.C., and a Holy Land theme park in Orlando, Fla.
If you're a true believer, though, you'll probably be offended. Then again, Maher is surely smart enough to realize that his movie will convert no one, but he seems to get off on the thrill of the challenge nonetheless.
"Religulous" comes from director Larry Charles, who teamed up with Sacha Baron Cohen for "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," and it has a structure reminiscent of that 2006 comedy, as well as similarly uproarious laughs.
The ones on the receiving end of Maher's Socratic-style questioning are often humorless -- they don't get that he's toying with them -- which makes the results even more absurdly amusing. Quick cutaways to movie clips that illustrate his points, from "Scarface" to "Superbad," keep the energy and hilarity high, as do subtitles commenting on the conversations, similar to "The Word" segment on "The Colbert Report."
But Maher undermines his arguments at the end when the tone turns sharply serious: He tries to make a connection between religion and all the wars and violence in the world, and he does it with the same kind of certitude he just got done condemning others for having.
R for some language and sexual material. 101 min. Three stars out of four.
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