By Joe Holleman
Post-Dispatch Film Critic

"Dogma" couldn't have avoided controversy if it had tried. But this howlingly funny movie - which is a mix of a chase film, a buddy movie and a theology debate - jumps into the fray with both feet.

Director Kevin Smith has made one of the more challenging, thoughtful and - without a doubt - spiritual films of the last several years.

God's avenging angel, Loki (Matt Damon) and his best angel buddy, Bartleby (Ben Affleck), were banished from heaven about 1,000 years ago because they refused to wipe out a town that had offended God. They argued that killing in God's name is wrong. Angered by their impertinence, God banished the two to Wisconsin until the end of time.

They discover a loophole when a New Jersey church, headed by Cardinal Glick (George Carlin), starts a new "Catholicism, Wow!" campaign to lure people back to the church, which includes forgiving the sins of anyone who enters the church. The angels see this as their ticket back to heaven. The heavenly powers, however, realize that if the angels negate God's banishment, it will prove Him infallible and bring about the apocalypse.

This forces Metatron, Voice of God (Alan Rickman), to enlist the help of Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a disenchanted Catholic who works at an abortion clinic. Helping her stop Loki and Bartleby are Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith); Rufus (Chris Rock), the 13th apostle who was cut from the Bible because he was black; and Serendipity (Salma Hayek), a celestial muse who now works on Earth as a stripper.

Damon is perfect as a boyish, wide-eyed presence who has one little flaw - he feels compelled to slay every sinner he sees. Affleck is the perfect foil, the good cop to Damon's bad cop. Rock is at his stand-up best, delivering lines with streetwise, machine-gun velocity and intensity. Rickman brings a droll, classy tone to Smith's otherwise over-the-top atmosphere.

Fiorentino is even better, turning in a performance that is comically solid but also brings genuine emotion as she struggles with her faith. It is a strong dramatic performance that could easily be overlooked.

Smith ("Clerks," "Mallrats" and "Chasing Amy") is the best young director working, and for all the old reasons. Instead of dazzling with special effects and wild visual tricks, Smith captures the tone, humor, attitude and, indeed, the language of the times. Smith's greatest talent is not innovation, but one of evocation. He is a gifted storyteller.

Enough about the standard movie-criticism points. Some Catholic groups are railing that the movie is sacrilegious. Obviously, Smith (a Catholic) has some issues with his church, with some of its tenets and its politics. "Dogma" is highly critical of the church's sexism and racism and it goes, in hammer-and-tongs fashion, after hypocritical church leaders.

In fact, Smith's obvious devotion to these issues leads to the movie's only substantial flaw - it is too long.

But it is far from an "anti-God" movie. Not only does the movie glorify God's existence, it also restates the belief in an afterlife, miracles, divine intervention, salvation, the forgiveness of sins and God's creation of the universe. It even goes as far as restating the Catholic tenet that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Christ. So much for tearing down the faith.

What the movie does is debate and question the nature of God and the teachings of the Catholic Church - something we Catholic high school students were encouraged to do in the mid-1970s.

For those who equate criticism of the Catholic Church with criticism of God (or who cringe at floods of four-letter words), don't go to this movie.

But for those who want to have a good laugh, and maybe a deep thought, "Dogma" is a blessing.