Sight and Sought, January 2000, p. 48

Despite the now notorious anti-blasphemy campaign waged against Dogma in the US, the most controversial element in writer- director Kevin Smith's new "religious satire" is not its alleged sacrilege, but its heavy-handed piety. This sporadically charming but pedagogical tale of abortion-clinic worker Bethany and her spiritual road trip is aggressively pro-faith. Bethany's journey to New Jersey is marked by several encounters with quasi-religious figures, such as Chris Rock's Rufus and Alan Rickman's Metatron, whose theology is part John Milton, part Christian mythology but all devotion. As Rufus declares, "It doesn't matter what you believe in, as long as you have faith!" And even though Smith's occasionally erudite script suggests the hardly groundbreaking notions that Christ was black and that Mary wasn't a virgin, this is still a movie whose narrative kernel is contingent on the infallibility of the Catholic Church.

Smith's structure here is an obvious departure from the films in his so-called New Jersey trilogy (Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy). Instead of the usual simple three-act drama of the latter, he has embraced the episodic structure of road movies, making The Wizard of Oz (1939) a key text. Accompanied by an Oz-like motley crew comprised of Rufus and the trilogy's recurring characters Jay and Silent Bob, Bethany's Dorothy figure is guided through an adolescence of theological confusion and sent home pregnant. Smith exchanges his crude but effective two-shots of people in strip malls and video stores for an array of crane shots, tracks and effects befitting a fantastical travelogue. DP Robert Yeoman (Drugstore Cowboy), replacing Smith regular David Klein, has added some elegant widescreen framing to the mix.

The unfortunate result of this bravura rejection of his trademark minimalism is that Dogma merely highlights Smith's weaknesses as a visual director. He overuses reaction shots when such scenes as the final scuffle with fallen angel Bartleby are virtually crying out for action, leaving jarring location changes unexplained, and subordinates action to dialogue. And while the dialogue displays Smith's canny gift for mellifluous everyday speech, the loftier-than- usual subject matter forces him into a defensive and all-too-regular use of comic relief. The appearance of the Golgothon 'Shit Monster' and the 'zany' boardroom massacre are both glaring comedy misfires, while Jay's overuse of sexual innuendo soon becomes tiresome and repetitious, as do the constant references to Star Wars, Indiana Jones films and The Incredible Hulk.

Yet there's a sporadic nonsensical energy to Dogma that's appealing, mainly due to the cast's camp showboating. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as the fallen angels in particular seem to be poking fun at their media image. Linda Fiorentino's Bethany, though required to do a lot of blank-faced listening, is compelling in the unusual position of an autonomous heroine who's having a spiritual crisis rather than predictable boyfriend troubles. But, ultimately, Dogma is less than the sum of its components. It's clearly not a religious satire since the conclusion merely reinstates the theocratic hegemony it pretended to challenge in the first place. Nor does it quite work as a road movie. Not quite sure whether it's about Bethany's spiritual quest or Bartleby's redemption, the film splits our attentions and affections. As an ambitious and overreaching break with Smith's provincial milieu Dogma is a failed experiment, but a noble failure.

Kevin Maher