Review of The God Who Wasn't There (2005) by Matthew V — 30 Mar 2010

Poking holes in Christianity is like shooting fish in a barrel, so it's no surprising how much they were able to cram into a 45 minute brief, but this documentary isn't exactly perfect. First of all, the filmmaker commits the cardinal sin of such a conversation by turning the narrative on himself at the end.

Personally, I would have been comfortable never seeing his face. I certainly didn't need to know anything about his own past and faith, although it was somewhat interesting to know that he had formerly been a fundamentalist himself.

Still, there's plenty here to chew on and another hour or so of expanded interviews that are provocative enough. Also, I was a bit baffled by the fact that he chose to only interview about four or five different "streetwalkers", so the polled sample could have used more diversity.

I mean, this is stuff that I generally agree with, but a documentary with deliberate bias and research faults is still not a great documentary. That said, it's an engaging presentation that simply could have used a bit more historical substance, rather than the brief allusions given here.