Religulous (2008)

"Those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"As he delivered his climactic sermon in the Israeli desert, I murmured, "Amen, brother." Religulous is a religious experience.  David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"The results are often as surprising as they are funny.  Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"Hellishly hilarious!  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Stylistically, Religulous is very much like a Michael Moore documentary...  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Editor's Note Bill Maher travels to Israel, England, the Netherlands, Vatican City, and across America, speaking to people about faith and religion in the very funny documentary RELIGULOUS. Maher, a stand-up comedian who has hosted the talk shows POLITICALLY INCORRECT on ABC and REAL TIME on HBO and has written such bestsellers as DOES ANYBODY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? and WHEN YOU RIDE ALONE, YOU RIDE WITH BIN LADEN, reaches out to religious leaders as well as regular folk on the street, discussing the existence of God and the importance of organized religion. Maher makes it clear from the start that he is not a fan of religion and does not believe in God, and he has fun skewering people who do--including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Mormons, rabbis, priests, politicians, scientists, evangelical ministers, and even a preacher whose church is a converted truck. He also visits such places as the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida, where he interviews the actor who plays Jesus in a live show there, and the Red Light District in Amsterdam, notorious for its legalized drugs and prostitution. As he has done on his television programs and in his books, Maher questions literal interpretations of the Bible, seeing it more as a collection of fairy tales. Director Larry Charles (BORAT, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM) intersperses clips from Hollywood films about religion to punctuate Maher's points, often to hilarious effect. The soundtrack is also used effectively, including such songs as the Doobie Brothers' "Jesus Is Just Alright," Ben Folds's "Jesusland," and Billy Bragg and Wilco's "Christ for President." Like such Michael Moore documentaries as FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, Maher's RELIGULOUS uses humor--and lots of cynicism and sarcasm--to examine controversial theories and topics that people feel very strongly about, no matter what side of the fence they are on. In addition to making audiences laugh, RELIGULOUS will make them think.

	Bill Maher
	Dr. Brian Weiss - Featured
	Dr. Francis Collins - Featured
	Jonah Smith - Producer
	Kathy Maher - Featured
	Jeff Groth - Editor
	Christian Kinnard - Editor
	Ray Suarez - Featured
	Aki Nawaz - Featured
	Julie Maher - Featured
	Jeff Werner - Editor
	Bill Maher - Producer
	Andrew Newberg - Featured
	Palmer West - Producer
	Mark Pryor - Featured
	Bill Maher - Featured
	Anthony Hardwick - Director of Photography
	Larry Charles - Director

USA Today
"[T]hose with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing." 10/01/2008

New York Times
"[T]he movie has the same loose, on-the-road structure as BORAT. Much of Mr. Maher's film is extremely funny in a similarly irreverent, offhanded way." 10/01/2008

Entertainment Weekly
"He's a bombs-away provocateur, and in RELIGULOUS, Maher's blasphemous detonation of all things holy and scriptural, he doesn't really pretend to play fair. He's like Lenny Bruce with an inquiring mind and a video camera." -- Grade: A- 10/10/2008 p.49

Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 5 -- "Bill Maher would have been burned at the stake if his hellishly hilarious and surprisingly thoughtful satire on organized religion had played the Inquisition." 10/16/2008 p.82

Premiere
"Maher has an appealing enough presence that the movie ceaselessly entertains....It's engaging and often quite fun to sympathize with Maher's agenda." 10/03/2008

ReelViews 6 of 10
Religulous is the much-anticipated collaboration between one of the guys responsible for Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry Charles) and the Politically Incorrect stand-up comedian (Bill Maher). The problem with the movie, whose title compresses "religious" and "ridiculous" into a single word, isn't that it milks more than one sacred cow but that it does so with minimal subtlety and intelligence...The success of the film may be tethered to expectations. If you are a deeply religious person, this is guaranteed to offend, and Maher doesn't care. According to him, you're part of the problem. If you're neither especially religious or irreligious, you'll probably get a few good laughs. However, if you're a member of the choir to which Maher is preaching, you may find this to be an especially shallow and uninteresting motion picture. It doesn't do anything stimulating. It's a 90-minute, comically-tinged rant against religion that offers selectively edited interviews with ringers...While the film is an utter failure as a documentary (it's more of a visual op-ed piece), it has moments of genuinely funny comedy. There are times when the inserted movie and video clips are inspired choices and some of Maher's tongue-in-cheek sarcasm is effective. On the whole, however, the occasional chuckles provoked by the movie don't make up for its sloppy, less-than-rigorous examination of an issue that deserves something more exhaustive. If the subject of religion is as important to Maher as he claims during his end comments, then he should have followed those words with actions and made a movie that's more than a sum of inauthentic interviews, ranting attacks, and obvious observations. The choir may hum along with Maher but the rest of those watching this movie will be singing the blues. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
I'm going to try to review Bill Maher's "Religulous" without getting into religion. Is that OK with everybody? Good. I don't want to fan the flames of a holy war. The movie is about organized religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, TV evangelism and even Scientology, with detours into pagan cults and ancient Egypt. Bill Maher, host, writer and debater, believes they are all crazy. He fears they could lead us prayerfully into mutual nuclear doom. He doesn't get around to Hinduism or Buddhism, but he probably doesn't approve of them, either...This review is going to depend on one of my own deeply held beliefs: It's not what the movie is about, it's how it's about it. This movie is about Bill Maher's opinion of religion. He's very smart, quick and funny, and I found the movie entertaining, although sometimes he's a little mean to his targets. He visits holy places in Italy, Israel, Great Britain, Florida, Missouri and Utah, and talks with adherents of the religions he finds there, and others...Or maybe "talks with" is not quite the right phrase. It's more that he lines them up and shoots them down. He interrupts, talks over, slaps on subtitles, edits in movie and TV clips, and doesn't play fair. Reader, I took a guilty pleasure in his misbehavior. The people he interviews are astonishingly forbearing, even most of the truckers in a chapel at a truck stop. I expected somebody to take a swing at Maher, but nobody did, although one trucker walked out on him. Elsewhere in the film, Maher walks out on a rabbi who approvingly attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran...I have done my job and described the movie. I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature. - Roger Ebert