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Maher toys with religion's fringes

MOVIE REVIEW

October 03, 2008|Kenneth Turan, Times Movie Critic

If you don't, "Religulous" also offers lots of added-value media clips, including biblical epics and the Yiddish-speaking Native Americans of Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." Excerpts from the programs of televised evangelists are also favored, the more outrageous the better, none more so than a woman insisting to the audience, "You need a Holy Ghost enema."

Yes, some of his interviewees, like Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), should have known better. And Maher does have the nerve to challenge these people on their beliefs. But he also goes on to mock them mercilessly on camera afterward, and his reliance on skewering people who are no match for him in glibness, persuasiveness or even intelligence finally leaves a sour taste.


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Decades ago, when Robert F. Kennedy was a Senate panel's crusading counsel and James Hoffa a tougher-than-tough Teamster leader, a series of blistering Washington hearings led people to say that RFK was the only person who could make you feel sorry for Jimmy Hoffa, and the same thing happens here. Only Bill Maher could make you feel sorry for the kinds of believers who, far from being pitiable, wield an enormous amount of power in this country. It's the rest of us we should be feeling sorry for, not them.

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kenneth.turan@latimes.com

"Religulous." MPAA rating: R for some language and sexual material. Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes. In limited release.

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