After months of debate in the media over its supposedly sacrilegious content, it's sort of bewildering to discover writer-director Kevin Smith's "Dogma" is not an all-out attack on the Catholic church but rather a rambunctious satire which ultimately turns out to be an endorsement of faith. Is it irreverent and crude? Of course, but what else would you expect from the man who made "Clerks," the first film to win an NC-17 rating purely on the basis of its dialogue?
In "Dogma," Smith (who professes to have been raised a Catholic) asks some of the same kinds of questions you might expect to hear from a precocious child after Sunday School. Did Joseph and Mary ever consummate their marriage after Jesus was born? Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? Why does the Bible skip over what happened to Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30? As you might expect, the answers Smith comes up with are, to put it lightly, a bit unorthodox. But he takes pains to warn his audience about what's coming in a disclaimer at the beginning of the film, asserting that "even God has a sense of humor -- just look at the platypus."
At any rate, anyone who's likely to be offended will probably bail out on "Dogma" in the first ten minutes, right around the time a cardinal (played by George Carlin, for heaven's sake) unveils the new "Catholicism Wow!" campaign which promises "a renewal of faith and style." The centerpiece of his press conference is the unveiling of a statue of a grinning Jesus offering a thumbs-up sign to his followers. The cardinal dismisses the old image of the crucifix, insisting "Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies."
That bit sets the tone for a meandering tale about the race to stop fallen angels Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck) from re-entering Heaven, a feat which would prove God's fallibility and bring on the end of existence. Linda Fiorentino plays Bethany, an abortion clinic worker who's astonished to find she's the one hand-picked by God to prevent this calamity, especially since she's obviously a bit spiritually conflicted. She attends Mass dutifully, but joylessly and confides to her co-worker Liz (Janeane Garofalo) she thinks God is dead. "The sign of a true Catholic," Liz cracks.
Before long, Bethany will be joined in her crusade by Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), the duo who've become Smith's answer to Laurel and Hardy after their previous appearances in "Clerks," "Mallrats" and "Chasing Amy." Although they score a few scattered laughs this time around -- particularly when they reveal what lured them from New Jersey to central Illinois -- the pair's shtick is beginning to wear thin, and "Dogma" might have been a more focused film without them.
Much more entertaining company is provided by the muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek), who's currently visiting the Earth in the guise of a stripper who does her act to New Edition's "Candy Girl," and Rufus (Chris Rock), who claims he was the thirteenth apostle and was left out of the Bible because he's black. Smith has given these characters many of the script's choicest and most provocative lines.
"Dogma" is practically bursting at the seams with ideas, some of which Smith puts across with considerably more finesse than others. He gets a delightfully dry performance from Alan Rickman as the underappreciated seraphim Metatron who berates Bethany for not recognizing him. "You people -- if there's not a movie about it, it's not worth knowing," he growls.
Smith also proves Affleck and Damon are good sports (and able comedians) by working in a few jokes alluding to the rumors about their off-screen friendship, and even manages a couple of nasty swipes at writer-director John Hughes by having Serendipity claim credit for have inspired 19 of the top 20 films of all time. The sole exception is "Home Alone": "Someone sold their soul to Satan to get the grosses up on that." James Sanford
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