What Would Jesus Buy?

What Would Jesus Buy? is one of those all-too-common issue-docs that's so clear about its point that it's practically pointless. Its message is hard to dispute: Americans buy too much useless crap, and we apply our time and resources to bargain-hunting rather than community-building. But aside from a few fleeting facts and figures and the occasional pointed image of cheap gewgaws, Van Alkemade doesn't back his point with hard logic or artful visuals. WWJB is all about emotional appeals and laugh lines. During the film's inevitable takedown of Wal-Mart, one of the store's workers boasts about her employee benefit package, then freezes up when trying to describe it further. Does she actually receive just compensation? Who knows? Van Alkemade quickly cuts away from her stammering, as though making the audience laugh at one woman's stage fright has proved something.

Of course, ultimately What Would Jesus Buy? isn't about Van Alkemade's point of view, but about Reverend Billy's, and frankly, The Church Of Stop Shopping's act ain't much. It's neither conceptually bold nor slyly satirical when Billy dresses up as a Southern evangelical and sings made-up hymns about "the shopacalypse" for whatever TV morning show will book him, and his public protests usually call more attention to himself than his cause. Since Van Alkemade has no apparent interest in exploring the irony of a fictional character sermonizing about Americans' "inability to distinguish between real life and simulated life," all we can do is take it at face value when Reverend Billy preaches to a movie audience of… Well, not the converted, exactly. Call them the smugly complacent.