Franchise Friday: Dogma (1999)
Kevin Smith hits his peak with this theological comedy.
I’m not sure whether it’s due to rights issues or something else, but finding a copy of Dogma to rent is near impossible on any digital platform, and the only copies I’ve found for purchase are used copies at exorbitant rates. It’s pretty easy to get your hands on Clerks, Chasing Amy and even the much-maligned Yoga Hosers. But Kevin Smith’s controversial fourth film is nigh impossible to locate.
Which is a shame: The one-two punch of Chasing Amy and Dogma is the peak of Smith’s career. The former is still an insightful and progressive sex comedy, and its follow-up is Smith’s most ambitious and smartest work, an irreverent and very funny tweak of Catholicism fueled by a serious and affectionate theological curiosity.
It also has a poop monster, because Smith gonna Smith.
A skewed view
Coming just a few years after the foul-mouthed but sweet-hearted Chasing Amy won critical acclaim, Dogma was Smith’s most ambitious film to date — it still is. Where Clerks, Mallrats and Amy were confined to only a few locations and dealt largely with the messiness of interpersonal relationships (albeit with a more cartoonish spin for Mallrats), Dogma is a sprawling comedy featuring angels, demons, theological deep dives and Christ’s forgotten 13th apostle. Its stakes aren’t rooted in a romantic relationship or in surviving the day shift at a convenience store, but rather in the continuation of all existence and the infallibility of God.
No wonder Smith created a shit demon to lighten things up.
Linda Fiorentino plays Bethany, a depressed Catholic on the verge of losing her faith. One evening, she is awakened by an angel (Alan Rickman) who charges her with a holy quest: Travel from Illinois to New Jersey to stop two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) from entering a church where, because of a loophole in Catholic dogma, they can have their sins forgiven and waltz right through the Pearly Gates — which would, of course, prove God fallible and negate all existence. She’s aided in her quest by Rufus (Chris Rock), the 13th Apostle, who was left out of the Bible because he’s Black; she’s also joined by two “prophets,” Smith’s View Askew mascots Jay and Silent Bob (played by Jason Mewes and Smith himself).
In some circles, Dogma was deeply controversial upon its release. Representatives of the Catholic League were particularly incensed, picketing the film and calling Smith’s ribald comedy “blasphemous” (in one of many classic Smith stories, the director actually joined the picket line). And you can understand their concern on the surface. Smith’s trademark is scatalogical and raunchy humor. Bethany is not just the film’s Catholic hero; she works at an abortion clinic. One character, an opportunistic cardinal (George Carlin), seeks to change Catholicism’s dark and guilt-tinged persona to something more poppier, so he “retires” the crucifix and creates The Buddy Christ, a statue of Jesus giving a thumbs-up. The film is full of F-bombs and crude sexual references. It’s not what you’d watch on a church movie night.
But for all its irreverence, Dogma takes issues of faith extremely seriously. Yes, there are poop monsters and hockey stick-wielding demons, but the plot is driven by Smith’s knowledge of Catholic minutiae and a frustration with the church’s seeming inability to change to meet the needs of a modern culture. The plot hinges on a little-known Catholic doctrine called “plenary indulgence,” and the film stops for long discussions about questions of God, faith, tragedy and spirituality. Smith might be dressing the entire thing up in the shaggy attire of an indie comedy, but his knowledge of the faith is genuine, to the point where this film is probably incomprehensible without a little bit of a catechism in your background.
Smith’s strength has always been his writing, and Dogma is one of his strongest and most insightful screenplays. There’s a sequence in which Affleck’s character laments the free will given to humans as opposed to the subservience he’s endured for eternity, and it’s one of the richest theological arguments I’ve seen put to film. And Bethany’s struggles with faith carry real weight and emotion. Sure, Smith goes off on tangents about Rufus being written out of the Bible and how all religions just need to get along, and his combination of theology and comic book interests is at times a bit too cute for its own good (see: poop monsters). But this is the most ambitious Smith has ever been; his subsequent films have too often suffered from a willingness to retreat into his own comfort zone. Here, Smith’s writing feels curious and even dangerous. I wish he’d do something this risky again.
Sinners and no saints
Dogma isn’t just one of Smith’s most intelligent films; it’s also tied with Chasing Amy as his best. Where his scrappy relationship comedy is probably his most focused and personal work, Dogma feels like a filmmaker understanding his own strengths and exploring his limits.
He’s definitely working with his most accomplished cast. Smith has made it clear that Fiorentino wasn’t the easiest actor to work with, but she brings a depth and intelligence to the View Askewniverse. Fiorentino’s not the funniest member of the cast, but she’s largely reacting in the film’s comedic moments. She captures the emotional complexity of someone whose faith ignited a sense of wonder, which was snuffed out in the hardness of life. Other actresses may have treated the material with too much snark and attitude; when Bethany laments God’s absence in her life, Fiorentino suggests real void sadness.
She’s backed up with an ensemble that any director would kill for. Affleck and Damon are both very funny; both were coming off their Good Will Hunting Oscar win, and they have no problems throwing themselves back into Smith’s world, bringing a sheen of respectability to their vulgar quips. There are few actors more respectable than Alan Rickman, who was two years away from his iconic work in the Harry Potter films, and the thespian has a great time as the curmudgeonly angel (1999 was a good year for Rickman, who is also fantastic in Galaxy Quest). Chris Rock would have been at the height of his standup career, George Carlin was already legendary, and Salma Hayek’s presence (she’s the Muse) makes any film better. Smith mainstay Jason Lee is also at his smug best here as the demon Azrael.
The cast is game for whatever theological shenanigans Smith puts them through. And yes, it’s probably a bit too much. The shaggy screenplay feels close to bursting as it peppers in Loki and Bartleby’s side mission to murder the heads of a blatant Disney stand-in, the road trip to New Jersey, and the case of a missing diety/skeeball enthusiast. But everyone seems energized to be working on something so unique that the film coasts over these problems. Smith doesn’t quite overcome his visual handicaps, but he tries some new things, peppering in fight scenes and an apocalyptic ending that suggest growth as a filmmaker.
If there’s one area where the film stumbles, it’s the inclusion of Jay and Silent Bob. Dogma is already a packed movie, and the stoners’ inclusion feels obligatory. For the first time in the Askewniverse, their presence is obnoxious and grating,.Mewes’ constant dirty jokes and sexual riffs are funny for a bit and then grow by turns distracting and aggravating. The characters also seem to lead the film into its most problematic areas. The sexual leering Jay and Bob do over Bethany feels skeevy in a post-#MeToo world, and there’s a sequence where they encounter some gang members that is pretty regressive from a racial perspective. I get it; there was a period where I showed up for anything Jay and Silent Bob appeared in. But their routine grows quite a bit less adorable with time.
And yet, one of the themes of Dogma is God’s penchant for using the most unlikely people to accomplish the most extraordinary tasks. He can use a Planned Parenthood employee to save existence and the state of New Jersey as the location for the universe’s most crucial battle. Why not a couple foul-mouthed stoners as prophets?
Dogma was a film I loved deeply in my twenties, when I was a sheltered Baptist kid learning to love movies. It told me it was okay to laugh at the weirder aspects of my faith, and that film could be a venue both for extreme silliness and theological imagination. I’m glad to see that the film holds up so well. I also wish Smith had done anything approaching this level of quality again.
But Dogma proves that I wasn’t wrong about his talent, and his recent health issues seem to have the director reinvigorated and contemplative. He’s hinted that the upcoming Clerks 3 will be a more thoughtful and emotional film, a semiautobiographcial riff on the making of the first film. Maybe the filmmaker who gave us Chasing Amy and Dogma has another great comedy left in him.
As a devout Catholic Christian, I feel the need to briefly talk about plenary (or total) indulgences. I don't know if Kevin Smith purposely misrepresents it or if he genuinely misunderstands (to be fair, a lot of people both Catholic and non-Catholic do). This is from an online tract on Catholic Answers (https://www.catholic.com/tract/myths-about-indulgences):
Myth 3: People can "buy forgiveness" with indulgences.
The definition of indulgences presupposes that forgiveness has already taken place: "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has ALREADY BEEN FORGIVEN (Indulgentarium Doctrinal 1, emphasis added). Indulgences in no way forgives sins. They deal only with punishments left after sins have been forgiven.