1144 - Religulous

I'm not really that super familiar with Bill Mahar outside of a few clips here and there. I liked him enough, and the topic of this as well as Larry Charles involvement was enough to excite me into going to see it. Having worked on a lot of documentaries myself, and especially in editing I know just how easy it is to manipulate people and what they're saying, how usually a 'cut' in documentaries is never just a cut, and never usually for style but for necessity. Given the topic there's only so much you can manipulate these people into looking stupid, since what's coming out of their mouths is pretty simple to begin with. There's a lot of funny bits here, but a lot of it's pretty obvious too.

What he could have, should have, focused on a bit more was 'why' people need religion, and perhaps what they could use as an alternative. He briefly touches on it, but not enough. People like and need communities and for a lot of people that's what religion is. The biggest problem is that he starts off this film with "I'm just curious what it's all about?" but ends with a clear agenda, and gets pretty preachy to his audience, who he assumes, like him, are atheists. It becomes a call to action, but unlike a film like 'An Inconvenient Truth" he doesn't offer any solutions and basically just tells us to "Fix it" without any indication as to how. For a film with some jokes, it works and it's mostly entertaining, although it does go on for a bit, but for a call to action, which is how it feels at the end, it's a bit irresponsible.