"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" (Documentary) (2008) - Movie Review

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” gets to its point of freedom of speech before bullying the concept of Darwinism. As a flag carrier Ben Stein with his dead stale face and some time subtle theatrics which is not subtle explores the possibility of alternative or may be a challenging theory opposing Darwinism exists and is being slaughtered to be buried. The film does indeed is pro-religion. As a documentary film director Nathan Frankowski does arrange the frames rightly in favour of its concept, giving an opportunity for an open discussion. It has caustic moments of exploitation and ridiculousness too.

The film can only purely been looked upon its contents and its preaching. The making is sumptuous for its philosophies. To deal it with fairness, I need to declare my beliefs on this issue, as such science and religion which is in strong focus of debate almost waging intellectual war as the film says. I am in between agnostic and atheist. The gray area is that I am making a move towards that. I am hardly focusing on not to embrace any religion. I am not against the people who have their faith as I would not be against any people who have their faith and ways to practice. I am against the wrongdoings in the name of it as millions of spokesperson, nation leaders, religious leaders and many many people making diplomatic statements would say. With that in clear the film does make you quench for answers and pop up questions. Can science and religion be interrelated or need to work together to discuss the possibility of Darwin’s concept being questioned/confirmed/altered? Yes, it can be. That is what the film’s end comes to. But the path is not good to be honest.

Atheists and scientists generally take an intellectual stand as they believe to see the unknown factor religious people take on superior power of their respective faith and religion. It is indeed true that Atheism is becoming a religion of itself. Professor Richard Dawkins who has defined the religiously created gods with a spite and he is put in the light how the film wants it to be, bad. There is a film about Larry Flynt, founder of the sex magazine “Hustler” in “People Vs. Larry Flynt” and his case of practicing his right to express even it means to offend some one. The position out here is no different than that. The mere controversy and hoopla it creates is the magnitude of its topic followed and argued and may be the greatest driving factor in discrimination and war, the religion. But religion advocates faith, hope, love and forgiveness as Stein asks Richard Dawkins too. True that it is in the discretion of one’s belief and his/her territory of events falling in effect due to that. The overlap of course is inevitable but how it is going to be solved, debated or disagreed or agrees to disagree? That is the challenge.

The film is the people suppressed due to their theories or the mentioning of the concept “Intelligent Design” which they do not much explain in detail. People’s jobs taken away, black listed, hated and despised for those theories. So the film tries to put forth the possibility of Darwin being wrong, how he may have been connected to Nazism, no concrete solid clear cut answer on “how” exactly the life form or began. The film misses its aim quite well in the midway. No one knows what precisely happened billions of billions years ago and even I have a theory for it. As they say, there need to be evidence to go about making an official release of it to may be taught in schools. The fear by many though as the dangers of religion, sects, differences and clashes segregating early in a human’s life. So the study is regulated but the concept should be discussed, no doubt if it opens up new doors to the avenue of finding the unknown.

I completely understand their argument that as flimsy Darwin’s concept are, it has become the base line for the fact and fantasy, it has been made into a rule book which in all possibility correct and the possibility of being wrong is highly unacceptable. The doctrine of that philosophy has evolved into a religion and as any religion has their fanatics, it has its own. The blunder of the film is that it really means to take sides on their belief rather than neutrally putting forth the discrepancies in the theories.

There is strong scent of the aggressiveness and condescending attitude in the approach as Michael Moore does it. Moore of course cleansed up most of it in “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “SiCKO” sparing the thoughts of concern than his rage for most of the time in those films. He too used a cheap stunt on late Charles Heston in “Bowling for Columbine”. The makers does similar thing. It cheaply uses the holocaust tragedy in an exploitative way to induce the dramatics it begins to thrive on. And yes after exploring the dens of the doom of the concentration camps, Stein says that this does not mean to equate Darwin responsible for the holocaust. It is a mere excuse for the horrendous tactics to exploit and by the time he says it, the damage has been done.

It is controversial discussion without any doubt and I do support that all things must be heard in methodical and objective perspective to offer a chance for questioning hard and fast theories, scientific or anything. The freedom of speech is in jeopardy rather than the concept. I have also riddled on the trust we put on the great scientists on blindly believing their expert opinion. As much as I can say I am moving towards non-believer in god/religion, I am a believer of relying and giving the fair chance of hearing the people right out. The film ends with a confronting interview with the film defined nemesis Richard Dawkins. Stein poses the following question which was posed by my colleague with whom I recently had a quite intriguing and interesting discussion over religion and god, “What happens when you die and there indeed is god?” Dawkins says a funny, interesting and insightful answer which he said to have been conveyed by a colleague/friend of his. I said, “Well, I am fine with facing the consequences”