Starting a career with earth-shattering feature debut can be a poisoned chalice for any aspiring film maker. If your first film is too high in quality, you set the standards and expectations on the level which is not likely to be met and the rest of your subsequent career might look like disappointment or underwhelming effort. This is the issue that plagued Kevin Smith following his celebrated cult debut Clerks and became apparent in his 1999 religious comedy Dogma.
Like most of Smith’s films, Dogma is set in the same fictional universe as Clerks. Nominal protagonist is Bethany Sloane (played by Linda Fiorentino), cynical abortion clinic counsellor. One night Metatron (played by Alan Rickman), seraph and Voice of God, appears to Bethany and tells her that she is the last descendant of Jesus Christ and, such, must go on a mission to save the world. The problem was inadvertently created by Cardinal Ignatius Glick who, in the ill-advised attempt to make Catholic Church and its teachings more “hip” and popular among younger generation, proclaimed that anyone who visit his church will have all of sins forgiven and be allowed to access Heaven. This is quite welcome news to Bartleby (played by Ben Affleck) and Loki (played by Matt Damon), two fallen angels cast down by God from Heaven, who in it see a way to return. Problem is that such return will remove God’s infallibility and bring end to all existence. Bethany must track and stop Bartleby and Loki and, while doing so, she meets two small-time dealers Jay (played by Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by Kevin Smith) whose assistance she gets with a vague promise of sex. Her party is joined with a number a colourful characters – Rufus (played by Chris Rock), thirteenth apostle who was written out of Bible on the account of being black; and Serendipity (played by Selma Hayek), muse who makes ends meet as a stripper. Azrael (played by Jason Lee), another fallen angel, has its own sinister plans and he wants to stop Bethany and her party with his own army of demons.
Few films were greeted with such high expectations as Dogma. Before the premiere Kevin Smith was enjoying reputation of wunderkind and one of the icons of new and vibrant American independent cinema. Unlike his debut, made by legendary small amounts of money, Dogma had support of Miramax and powerful Weinstein brothers. Many wondered what would Smith be able to do with larger budgets and big stars at his disposal. Film’s treatment of Catholic teachings, on the other hand, was deemed blasphemous and offensive from certain conservative circles. Smith, who declares himself a Catholic, received the death threats, while the film was subject of protests, boycotts, bans in various countries and Miramax had its US distribution switched to Lions Gate because of the controversy. Those controversies, however, actually helped the film with extra publicity and Dogma had more than decent success at the box office. Critics were, however, noticeably less than enthusiastic.
Smith began to work on the script for Dogma long before Clerks and for him this film was very personal. It represent to attempt to reconcile his Catholic faith with the critical views on the Church and its practices, and do it in the form of fantasy action comedy. However, in tackling an issue which was deeply personal yet in a controversial way of irreverent Hollywood satire Smith found himself tasked with something which was apparently beyond the limits of his talent. The main problem with Dogma is that Smith takes those issues too seriously and somehow not fitting to his usual methods of storytelling based on salty languages and endless pop culture references. Smith in Dogma also tries to makes his Catholicism look modern, “cool” and “hip”, in line with mores and values with MTV generation and, in doing so, makes the same mistake as fictional character of Cardinal Glick. This reflects in the film lacking coherent tone. It works best as irreverent silly comedy in the first half only to turn to characters preaching in the second half, usually at the expense of humour. And like so many Hollywood comedy authors when faced with lack of inspiration, they try to compensate the lack of proper laughs with mindless action and special effects near the end.
Smith’s creative limitations, which weren’t that apparent in his small independent debut, are quite visible here. They reflect on film being overlong, yet, some of the material, which was designed for three-hour epic, was edited out, leaving some elements of the plot undeveloped and, at times, confusing. There are too many characters, probably introduced in order for Smith to show off with big cast that included established stars like Alan Rickman or Selma Hayek. Linda Fiorentino, one of the tragically underrated actresses of her generation, who did such marvellous job few years earlier in The Last Seduction, has her talents wasted here with underwritten and uninteresting character. Some of the jokes aren’t particularly funny, like the one featuring monster made of excrement. What ultimately rescues Dogma is Jason Mewes as Jay, whose dialogue lines seem genuinely funny. Ben Affleck and his friend Matt Damon, who as film’s semi-villains build on “buddy buddy” dynamic they had in real life, also provide the film’s most interesting scenes. One of those, featuring fictional company with Golden Calf-like icon of Mooby, although seemingly not connected with the rest of the film, gives Dogma certain “meta” quality and serves as Smith’s own commentary on the corporate censorship by big Hollywood studios.
While ultimately and predictably disappointing, Dogma still represents one of the better disappointments to come from late 1990s Hollywood. There is enough thought-provoking elements in the script and some entertainment for this film to recommended to viewers who aren’t big fans of Kevin Smith and even those who wouldn’t care about two hours of theological debate.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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