Religulous (2008)

religulous poster 3.5rating  (3.5/5) documentary, comedy

Reference: imdb6 | wikipedia12
Reviews: Roger Ebert | IMDb External Reviews | Rotten Tomatoes 70% | Metacritic 56%

In the irreverent Religulous, Bill Maher uses humour (and a little mean-spirited, unfair editing) to poke holes in the dogma, beliefs and creeds of several religions. Maher is an agnostic. His intention is to show that religion is dangerous, plays too large a part in politics (especially in the U.S.)  and is the cause of most of the world’s problems. While he spends half the film challenging Christianity, he also confronts Judaism, Mormonism, Islam and Scientology.

religulous - maher with actor jesus

Religulous has a Michael Moore-like feel. It is directed by the same director as Borat – the Larry David protégé, Larry Charles. It’s punchy, funny, ironic and even engaging. But the unfair editing, unnecessary pot shots, disrespectful interruptions and biased subtitles needlessly diminish it.

While amusing, it is not as funny as some critics lead me to believe. The movie will be offensive to devout theists and informative to those questioning their faith. The latter would be better served by picking up a copy of either Dawkins’ The God Delusion or Hitchens’ God Is Not Great.

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