This is one of those films that I ended up watching simply because the title caught my eye. Here in The Netherlands, almost nobody knows what Bill Maher is, and this Michael Moore style documentary didn’t make it to many theatres here. Quite surprising, as Maher does visit Amsterdam as part of his quest to discover the reality behind religion. A quest that, although funny enough to watch is really rather poorly executed.

Maher starts his movie by stating that mankind is close to a man-made Armageddon, and consequently blames religion for it, or at least in part. He then sets off to talk to all sorts of people and visits place somehow affected by religion. The obvious place to start is American Christianity, but besides Hinduism and Buddhism he pretty much goes everywhere.

Much like Moore, Maher pokes fun at the issues which makes this a very ‘light’ film to watch. But unlike Moore, he loses sight of his own point. Islam is portrayed as a violent religion even thought the only expert interviewed insists it is not. If Maher really set out to see what religion was all about he would at least have listened to these people. Instead he over-simplifies things and doesn”t build up any real evidence for his closing argument. Which again is pretty bold.

The reason I enjoyed this film is simply because Maher’s views for the most part correspond with mine. Even if he’s not always fair, the result was fun to watch for someone already part of his ‘church’. He quite effectively lets some religious groups make fun of themselves, and warns about the dangers of mixing politics and religion. It’s about as objective as Fahrenheit 911 was, and at points equally funny. But where Moore takes a shooting victim to a store that sells bullets, Maher refuses to get that sincere and remains a funnyman. Which really is too bad.

Be Sociable, Share!

•