In Religulous Bill Maher travels the world questioning believers about their faiths. While there’s plenty of humour in his interviewees often confused responses, the filmmaker’s unwavering cynicism sometimes damages his argument, writes Jez Sands

Religion is a sensitive subject. Put one foot wrong and you’ll be a burning effigy by the end of the week. So it’s rather brave of Bill Maher to make a film like Religulous which lambasts the ridiculousness of what he thinks is mere superstition.

In a trip spanning the globe, Maher interviews everyone from priests and politicians to men claiming to be the second incarnation of Jesus, frequently revealing their beliefs to be utterly absurd. He does this by asking simple and direct questions and letting his interviewees talk themselves into corners. It’s incredible so many of them really aren’t sure what they believe in the first place and often faith takes the place of common sense.

Take one Jewish man who rather than push a button on the Sabbath, has designed an entire machine to get around this problem for him. Exploiting loopholes in religious law seems a bit like cheating.

Highlighting the folly of blind faith is really interesting and frequently funny but it’s also quite worrying many people in powerful positions are elected because of their religious beliefs. At one point a US Republican Senator says “you don’t need to pass an IQ test to get into the White House” and another woman says “I don’t know anything about Bush’s policies but I’ll vote for him because of his belief in Jesus”.

News Shopper: Film review: Religulous ***

Oddly, it’s the priests themselves who have the most rational viewpoints. One senior Vatican priest flatly states the existence of Hell is utter nonsense. This juxtaposed with people claiming dinosaurs and cavemen coexisted because of their literal interpretation of the Bible also makes for some entertaining viewing.

Maher doesn’t fight fair. Images of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks are spliced with footage from the interviewees with some humorous onscreen commentary and while this is certainly hilarious, it doesn’t always portray a balanced viewpoint.

This is the main problem in the second half of the film. Having quite easily confounded those in the Christian faith on his home turf in the USA, Maher travels abroad to speak to Muslims and Jews on theirs. But when talking to Muslim priests he interrupts and ridicules them directly instead of letting them speak and create their own contradiction and while this is funny, it damages the points he’s trying to make.

Most of the film is light hearted in tone, rhetorically and methodically picking holes in fundamentalist dogma and that works well. But at the end Maher reaches the abrupt conclusion of “grow up or die”.

While it’s certainly a valid view point that religion has done more harm than good, leaping to this conclusion so sharply doesn’t do anything for advancing this viewpoint. And in sacrificing logical debate for jokes, Maher’s arguments aren’t wholly convincing. They won’t be burning his likeness in town squares just yet.

Religulous (15) is out now.