"Dogma" (1999) - Movie Review

“Dogma” is funny as hell and enlightening as heaven. This is daring, satiric, dark, comedic, and bold and a convincingly creative story written and directed by independent film maker Kevin Smith. It involves all the lines for controversy and right on target for it. The film has everything so perfect that as and when the strong obvious dialogues of controversy pops up, we laugh and think, “yeah that is true”. It is more than nice way of saying, it induces thoughts, discussions and of course “ideas”.

The film takes on toll on the Catholicism. It makes funny remarks on the system of it, the doctrines, rules which appear ridiculous but does make sense in the rules book of “God”. A clever writing which they use for both mocking and justifying the points, hence becoming neutral and also conveying what they intended. It is a weirdly intriguing story of how two renegade angels Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon) are condemned in to the misery (in Wisconsin, yes !) and after living by side with the humans and then to guard the gates of heaven for eternity. They are mysteriously hinted by some one to go into this Church in New Jersey where in the idea of inviting more believers in Catholicism, Cardinal Igantius Glick (George Carlin) spins off the crucifixion into “Buddy Christ” and also allowing entering the arch of the Church to wash off the sins. Hence they go on the journey and alas! They must be stopped because them getting back to paradise is proving god wrong. This task is assigned to Bethany (Linda Florentino) who in the recent past is questioning her faith.

I have never seen such a controversial open discussion handled with maturity, absurdity and intelligence. Smith breaks all rules which were posed off and crosses over which were not even invented. Truly while it has the crude joke, it is philosophical in every bit of its script. The film while running in the basis of theism argues about atheism. It debates over faith and jumps on beliefs and resolves over ideas. It mocks the humans and blames them for taking things granted and how god has been so soft cornered with them. And just to get the right taste of what we are going to enjoy is the brilliant argument of Loki to a nun in the airport in near start of the film. This is writing skills at its best. We have seen it in “Clerks” and while Smith failed in “Mallrats”, he came well in “Chasing Amy”. Now in this venture, this is a proof of how versatile and open he is. He might be loud but surely he has a point.

To make this fantasy of reality to happen, Damon and Affleck do their angels with such belief and authority that it is a treat to watch angels talk about the tabooed subject for them in profanity and audacity. It shows mainly when Bartleby blames god for being so partial and considerate to their secondary being, humans. As angels before us, he feels it as totally unfair for them to be treated totally unforgiving while the mass annihilation and calamity the humans does are redeemed so easily by him/her/it. Every one including Alan Rickman as Metatron (voice of god), Jay (Jason Mewes), Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), 13th Apostle (Chris Rock), Azrael (Jason Lee), Serendipity (Salma Hayek) say their lines with belief and in the midst of it, having fun to say the least.

So does the movie hurt the religious sentimentality of the Catholics or any other religion? As it says, it depends on how you want to see it. While it stands in the middle of it, they preach their tone of openness and individuality. The free will, the freedom, the ideas and the concept of taking what it is and what it is not is up to each one. The film’s release was postponed and even after that, protestors were standing in front of the theatres picketing “Dogma is Sin”. I respect their sentimentality. But honestly, if they would have taken the time to see the film, may be they would have a different view. Sure it crosses lines but it is done for a reason to be far reached and saying, “Hey when the unknown can take any form, in my world, angels kill and swear, god can be any one or thing and the blessed souls can use profanity”. People forget the idea of it. Even if it looks “sinful”, it needs to be analyzed to see what exactly they are saying. Their effort did something; it increased the people to go for the curiosity ultimately defeating their purpose. The actions itself explains everything the film tells upon, what ever it is, what ever you do, people will do what they want to and have faith over what they need to. “Dogma” is a reminder of those.