“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And in the end he kind of f***ed it up. And that’s why we’re here this evening”

There could be no more fitting introduction to Religulous than this, offered by the film’s director, Larry Charles, before its screening at the London Film Festival.

The powerhouse writer/director/producer has made an unapologetically cantankerous diatribe against religion. Charles’s co-conspirator is comedian Bill Maher, whose laconic humour makes him the perfect front man for the film.

Religulous follows Maher through a series of meetings with religious types, in an ostensible quest to find out more about faith. Many of the interviewees are set up simply as punching bags for Maher’s not inconsiderable wit.

The film warns against the dangers of religion to contemporary society. Maher worries that religion and politics are too closely aligned, particularly in the United States. Because the three main western monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) all prefigure the end of the world, Charles sees a terrible danger that religious politicians might unleash nukes on one another and destroy us all. Alarmist? Quite possibly.

Maher is greatly frustrated by organised religion, seeing in it narrow-mindedness and a lack of logic. However, while many of his points are compelling, Maher risks turning sympathetic agnostics against him, the same way Michael Moore ultimately upset much of his own liberal support base.

There is a fine line to walk between popularising a subject and oversimplifying it, and Religulous undoubtedly strives hard to get it right. Charles is negotiating to turn the film into a 14-hour television series, in which the issues could be explored properly.

This 90-minute incarnation doesn’t get the balance quite right. For all their hard work, Maher and Charles won’t manage to convince many of their central thesis. The film does have moments of side-splitting humour and revelation - which may well have been the point.

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