Dogma (2008, Blu-ray Disc)

Kevin Smith's 1999 film Dogma starts out before the credits roll with several disclaimers saying "We're sorry if the movie you are about to see is offensive, but we were just out to make a piece of funny fantasy, blah-blah-blah...." That in itself is enough to serve you notice that whoever put this movie together knew that somebody was going to be Almightily offended. In that, they succeeded.

A few years ago I read a book on writing jokes and humor, and the book said that when you were being funny, you could laugh at certain things but certain things were no-nos. Among the things you weren't supposed to make fun of were handicapped children, people with terminal diseases, and religion. Making fun of certain things just isn't all that funny unless you are psychotic. The way that Dogma disses religion in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular certainly illustrates why making fun of religion is ultimately unfunny, the way that laughing at a girl who has just broken her leg is unfunny. There is just something tasteless and inhumane about it for people who have mental balance.

Even so, Dogma has some funny moments and anyone who has taken some theology courses will probably find some of it laughably hilarious. I found myself alternately chuckling and cringing.

In the story, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon play two angels, Loki and Bartleby, who are cast out of heaven and exiled for all eternity in Wisconsin (we know we are in Wisconsin because of all the cheeseheads.) They hear about a radical Catholic bishop (George Carlin) who wants to give the church an upbeat image. He's rededicating a new cathedral in New Jersey in honor of the new image of "The Buddy Jesus." Anyone entering the cathedral will get what is called a "plenary indulgence" which means that if you are in a state of grace, all temporal punishment for sin is taken away, and you can enter directly into heaven.[By the way, in case you're interested, this kind of loopy theological quasi-reasoning is what brought about the Protestant Reformation 500+ years ago...the idea in the Bible is that salvation is by the love of a loving Heavenly Father, not through the mechanics of man-made "indulgences".] So anyway, the castaway angels are on their way to storm their way back into heaven, but the forces of heaven are out to stop them because it is feared that if God wants them banished to Wisconsin, and they find a way to outsmart God, all creation will be destroyed. Strange logic indeed for the non-Catholic, but many irreverent and intelligent Catholics will get the jokes faster than anyone else.

The vulgarity, obscenity, bloody violence against women and the helpless, and the non-stop profanity of this movie take quantum leaps into bad taste, in my opinion. I had a feeling like someone was trying to make a funny movie about people going into holocaust ovens. I suppose there are certain people who get off on such stuff. But if you can overlook the sick sewer-like atmosphere that fogs up most of the movie, there is a fairly interesting intellectual game going on here within it.

One of the funniest (and most ribald) characters is "Jay", a direct descendent of the line leading from the class clown Maynard Krebs of "Dobie Gillis and Spiccolli of Fast Times at Ridgemont High into Homis Bob-us. This is the evolutionary down-the-tubes path of the "Slacker" character in "funny"-teen-shows in the last 50 years of Hollywood. Jay and "Silent Bob" (Kevin Smith himself) are funny but the humor surrounding them usually makes you cringe unless you like incredibly sick jokes.

The real guts of this movie is the reality that there are many things about the Roman Catholic Church's belief structure (and Christianity's) which seem just plain weird. But then again; remember, it's a 2,000-year old Church. If you were 2,000 years old you might have done a few weird things along the way. Things can happen. Mostly good but some not so good.

I know it is supposed to be a harmless send-up of the Church, but under the "harmlessness" I could feel the cold teeth of hate, and that is what bothered me. I like a good satire, but when satire has underneath it a hand ready to pound nails into flesh and hang a helpless body on a cross then there is something really vile here. And I sensed that al the way through this movie. It just wasn't funny to me. OKay, so the Roman Catholic Church has its problems; even so an objective observer of history will see that 99% of what it has done across 2,000 years has been to bring life and hope to people. But in this age where all that is good and beautiful are being torn down and stomped on by the neo-Neanderthals of freedom in the streets even institituions which have literally saved civilization and shown humanity the pathway toward peace, cooperation, and love are the prime prey for the sneering tramplers. Do I sound bitter? Naw, not me. Even so, it is courageous for Smith and company to venture into an internal plotline where , to coin a phrase, angels fear to tread.

So, even with relatively strong internal fibers, the start and the finish of the movie seem weak and sophomoric.

The acting, all except for Alan Rickman's, was baaaaad. Affleck and Damon seem like they don't know jack about the theological issues they are spewing off about; as if they were reciting lines from a manual on table-saw maintenance or something. If they had any idea about the grammar and syntax of real Roman Catholic theology they might have skillfully made this pretty funny, but instead their acting and their dialogue come off lamer than I've ever seen these guys. They seem utterly lost, divorced from any intellectual context about what they are doing at all. It's like watching WWF wrestlers try to explain the intricacies of hypothalmus brain surgery. Baaaaad. This is ten zillion miles away from the acting performance Affleck gave in Chasing Amy, for example.

The plot had possibilities, but somewhere in this thing the wheels came spinning off. I'm not sure just where, but take away all the religious issues and looking at it from a dramatically structural point of view it is a crash and burn, like Smith and company were getting close to the end and were afraid that a lightning bolt was going to hit the set any second or something so they'd better call it a wrap and get the Hades out of there.

The most depressing aspect of all this is that Kevin Smith is a man of considerable talent. But then again so was John Belushi and look what happened to him. I just hope Kevin gets out of the zonko zone and doesn't crash and burn. He'd be so great if he'd turn his considerable comic genius into a pathway of healthy humor and forget all the dumb stuff. But the magnetism of the dark and the tasteless aspects of the world may have too great a grip on him. Another lost soul, maybe. Dang.

So overall, I give this one 2 stars. I would have given it just one star but there is some genuinely funny stuff here and Alan Rickman does his customarily superb job. Alan usually plays the incredibly interesting villian in movies but here he plays an incredibly interesting Messenger of God, and is fun to watch whnever he is onscreen.

Anyway, 2 stars for Dogma-Bogma. It is intentionally offensive, and it is so wrapped up in the 'message' it seems to forget why it exists. A misfire all the way around.