It's almost impossible to give an impartial assessment of Bill Maher's new film, "Religulous." The subject matter is so loaded, and Maher himself so difficult, that the viewer's preconceived notions of religion, positive or negative, will inevitably win out in the end. Maher, bright guy and shrewd documentarian though he may be, is most likely fighting a losing battle. When one's opponent is religion itself, most battles are.
Maher, as he is sure to make clear, is not an atheist. He is an agnostic who believes only in the impossibility of ever knowing. He is outraged not that people believe in a higher being, but at their certainty of its existence, especially when, as he puts it, "Human history is just a litany of getting s--t dead wrong." And so he travels from place to place, first across the country and then across the globe, simply to ask why. Why, he wonders, are people so certain?
The documentary, starring Maher and directed by Larry Charles -- who produced "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but is perhaps best known for directing "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (2006) -- is a careful study of Maher's constant struggle with a society that suppresses all things nonreligious. Maher's main problem with society, it seems, is that faith is simply not allowed to be questioned; he discovers this early on, when he pulls over at a truck stop in North Carolina to interview a congregation of the local "truckers' church." The men there are apprehensive about God's existence being called into question, even when Maher insists that deep down, uncertainty is all they really have. "That's what I preach," he tells them, forcefully banging on the makeshift pulpit in the trailer of the church. "I preach the Gospel of 'I Don't Know.'"
But Maher's main focus is not on the existence of a higher being. He even admits that he has at times bargained with God, citing this as his inspiration for quitting smoking earlier in life. His real beef is with organized religion, and the bulk of the film focuses on what Maher sees as the most egregious examples of faith gone wrong.
He perfectly cherry-picks the most outrageous religious figures he can find -- from an Arkansas senator who believes Americans need the Ten Commandments to know that murder is wrong to a Muslim musician who enjoys rapping about suicide bombing -- as a way of proving his point. These people, he says, epitomize what is wrong with religion.
Maher does more than analyze these people. He bullies them -- not physically, but in every other way imaginable. He takes his interviewees down devious lines of questioning, gleefully trapping them, the climax of each interview inevitably coming when Maher essentially tells them to their faces that they are liars, hypocrites or just plain lunatics. Maher is infuriated by these people, but he enjoys struggling with them. He thinks he's winning, and he makes no secret of it.
Maher's argument comes with a sense of entitlement. He reminds us that our country was founded by the nonreligious, among them Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. He claims to have history, if not current events, on his side. There was a time, he points out, when America was not led by people like George Bush, men who use their faith to boil foreign policy down to "a conflict of good and evil."
Maher does not tread lightly on his controversial subject matter. He is brutal, conceited and, especially early on in the film, heavily self-referential. For a man whose goal is to bring the nonreligious "out of the closet to assert themselves," he is most likely a failure. He is not the ideal spokesman for any cause, especially not one this ambitious. If viewers are not already firmly entrenched in Maher's antireligious camp upon entering the theater, it is unlikely they will change their mind. But if all you want is a witty, thought-provoking piece of filmmaking from a witty, thought-provoking guy, there's no reason not to give "Religulous" a chance.
