The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues
Write for Us
Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues

No hope of salvation for Maher’s latest film

By John Fitzgerald, Red Pulse Writer

The last time I checked, taking the audience’s level of intelligence for granted is the big faux pas in movie making. This is especially true when people are paying good money to see a film. If you agree with the previous statements, then Bill Maher and Larry Charles are criminals. But not just any criminals, the worst kind: The kind that not only takes your money, but makes fun of you while they take it. I felt taken for a fool and I didn’t even have to pay to see the film!

[Javascript required to view Flash movie, please turn it on and refresh this page]

In this “documentary” that makes Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” look like a bipartisan bedtime story, Bill Maher trots the globe intending to interview people about God and religion. Big problem: He doesn’t go to intelligent sources of the religion for plausible answers. The movie instead quickly gets off course because Bill only finds the craziest, most out-of-context examples in regard to personal worship. I can stomach this once or twice, but the whole movie? I suspect this was done to add shock value and hopefully a few laughs, of which the film ironically has none. In the end, Maher’s shtick is as old as the unanswerable questions regarding God and faith, which he purportedly is trying to answer. In reality, he is not after any answers, but just wants to take some jabs at people who are at least giving it a shot. Thank you Bill, the choir has officially been preached to.

Maher’s notoriously flippant wit is demonstrated in what the movie producers are oddly calling a “fascinating spiritual journey.” I agree. There are fascinating aspects to the film. For example, I find it very fascinating that Maher can be in a film for 101 minutes and expect the audience to laugh at a joke for the fourth, fifth and even sixth time, when very few people laughed the first time around. We get it Bill, the “talking snake” and the “virgin birth” is at times difficult to conceptualize. Religion is kooky sometimes. It takes faith. We get it.

I also find it fascinating that the abnormally long and overplayed scenes in the movie slipped through the quality control cracks. Isn’t there a quality control person for movies? Someone who can nudge the director and wake him up every so often? He must have been at church when he should have been doing some nudging.

Another fascinating aspect of the film is it is far easier to make fun of people from the outside looking in. Making a film about religion without actually letting the other side present its point of view is bad journalism, which only makes for a lopsided argument and a film that is neither amusing nor clever.

It really is a shame that the film turned out this way. It had potential in director Larry Charles, who previously directed the hilariously funny “Borat.” How can “Borat” be funny while “Religulous” is not? “Borat” seemed to be poking fun at the broader spectrum of ridiculous people, not isolated extreme examples like in “Religulous,” which few people can relate to. That is, unless you’ve already taken the cynical approach that Maher takes at the end of the film when he basically says all religions are evil. “Don’t be religious or suffer the consequences!” The irony is that Bill falls into his own trap; he tries to end with a big bang, but only ends up with a big flop. He ends up sounding just as crazy as the people whom he “interviewed!”

After the movie was over, I tried to figure out whether Maher did this on purpose or not. In the last few minutes of preaching, did he intentionally try to look foolish in his rant on religion? Was it just a not so subtle example to demonstrate the unorthodox behaviors of the believers in his film, only to try and make them look even dumber? I don’t know if he did it on purpose. I’m not quite sure what Maher was doing, which probably wouldn’t surprise him at all, as he took my intelligence for granted in the first place.

[email protected]

Leave a Comment

Comments (0)

The Daily Utah Chronicle welcomes comments from our community. However, the Daily Utah Chronicle reserves the right to accept or deny user comments. A comment may be denied or removed if any of its content meets one or more of the following criteria: obscenity, profanity, racism, sexism, or hateful content; threats or encouragement of violent or illegal behavior; excessively long, off-topic or repetitive content; the use of threatening language or personal attacks against Chronicle members; posts violating copyright or trademark law; and advertisement or promotion of products, services, entities or individuals. Users who habitually post comments that must be removed may be blocked from commenting. In the case of duplicate or near-identical comments by the same user, only the first submission will be accepted. This includes comments posted across multiple articles. You can read more about our comment policy at https://dailyutahchronicle.com/comment-faqs/.
All The Daily Utah Chronicle Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *