Who’s In It: Bill Maher
The Basics: Bill Maher would like you to know that God doesn’t exist. He grew up with a Catholic father and a Jewish mother and is now an atheist. But for the purposes of this ambush documentary he pretends to be a seeker so he can go on the attack. He finds religious politicians, irate and almost-literate Christian truckers, an odd theme park Jesus, an uptight ex-gay, an Orthodox Jewish man who invents machines that will do Shabbat-forbidden activities for you and Muslims who can’t quite bring themselves to denounce violence against infidels. In other words, every super-intense religious person who ever freaked you out or gave you a headache.
What’s The Deal: Devout Christian novelist Flannery O’Connor once wrote of an elderly, bitter, hypocritically religious female character in her story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" that everything would have been better if someone had been around to shoot her every day of her life. And Bill Maher would like to be the guy to do the metaphorical shooting, which makes sense considering his main intent here is nothing less than saving the planet from a religion-inspired nuclear war meltdown. And most clear-thinking people would agree with him, even a sizeable chunk of religious ones, probably. But he’s not out to have a dialogue here. He wants to catch loons at their looniest. So he does. And it’s funny. But it’s not going to convert anyone.
How To Undercut Your Argument: Edit conversations to make the other side appear even more sub-verbal, awkward and intellectually challenged than they already are and/or cut them off to go for the gag every single time. This is a repeated one-two punch Maher delivers and, again, while it sometimes works for the laugh’s sake, it eventually starts to feel like he’s bagging crippled game. Until he gets to Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, that is, a bizarrely charismatic minister who believes himself to be the Messiah and who can’t be told anything. He’s like a rock star, in a way. Not admirable, but fascinating.
Weirdest Omission: No mention of people like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Dorothy Day or other people whose faith inspired them to great social justice movements. In interviews, Maher contends that those movements would have happened anyway, and maybe they would have, but it seems weird that there’s not even a nod to the non-crazy opposition.
Who Should See It: People who think their governments should be theocratic, people who think Barack Obama is the Antichrist, anyone on board for the idea that their own religion is the absolute truth and the rest are gutter cults. Not that you won’t just dismiss the movie entirely and think Maher is going to burn in hell. But who knows, maybe you have a sense of humor and you can take the punches he’s throwing. There have to be some of you out there.