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What Would Jesus Buy?

  • 2007
  • PG
  • 1h 31m
IMDb RATING
6.3/10
1.2K
YOUR RATING
What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)
Theatrical Trailer from Warrior Poets
Play trailer1:57
1 Video
1 Photo
ComedyDocumentary

An examination of the commercialization of Christmas in America while following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from ... Read allAn examination of the commercialization of Christmas in America while following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of... Read allAn examination of the commercialization of Christmas in America while following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt.) The film also delves into issues such as the role sweatshops play in Ameri... Read all

  • Director
    • Rob VanAlkemade
  • Writers
    • Sangeeta Samsera Sharma
    • Rob VanAlkemade
  • Stars
    • Adetola Abiade
    • Paul Allen
    • Paul Norman Allen
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.3/10
    1.2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Rob VanAlkemade
    • Writers
      • Sangeeta Samsera Sharma
      • Rob VanAlkemade
    • Stars
      • Adetola Abiade
      • Paul Allen
      • Paul Norman Allen
    • 20User reviews
    • 37Critic reviews
    • 60Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    What Would Jesus Buy?
    Trailer 1:57
    What Would Jesus Buy?

    Photos

    Top cast54

    Edit
    Adetola Abiade
    • Alto
    Paul Allen
    • Tenor
    Paul Norman Allen
    • Tenor
    Shannon Baxter
    • Soprano
    Rick Becker
    • Trombone
    James Solomon Benn
    • Choir Director…
    Reverend Billy
    Reverend Billy
    • Reverend Billy
    Ben Cerf
    • Bass
    Misun Choi
    • Soprano
    Ben Dubin-Thaler
    • Bass
    Savitri Durkee
    • Church Director
    Leah Farrell
    • Tenor
    Gina Figueroa
    • Alto
    Mike Flthye
    • Drums
    Donald Gallagher
    • Bass
    Jerry Goralnick
    • Bass
    Amber Gray
    Amber Gray
    • Alto
    Mark Harder
    • Bass
    • Director
      • Rob VanAlkemade
    • Writers
      • Sangeeta Samsera Sharma
      • Rob VanAlkemade
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews20

    6.31.1K
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    Featured reviews

    9krandolph27

    Reverend Billy Inspires and Delights

    I just saw the free screening in New York City last Sunday. I have to say I am amazed that there hasn't been more films about the uncontrolled rate of consumerism that is plaguing our nation. However, certainly What Would Jesus Buy has set the mark paving the way for other anti-consumerism films. Reverend Billy is absolutely compelling and hilarious to watch. He has the charisma and virtues of a true revolutionist; yet, he makes you smile and laugh along the way. His funny and poignant sermons make even the most pessimistic atheist want to attend church just to listen to him. All I have to say is take the family to see this movie and regain a sense of not only the Christmas spirit, but the American spirit as well.
    roevswadeboggs

    In a word: spectacular.

    I am not typically a man who posts reviews of films. In fact, this is my first. But after catching What Would Jesus Buy in the Village last night, I was particularly inspired. This is a great film; well-captured, well-edited, and loaded with moments of unconscionable hilarity. Reverend Billy is both a brilliant pitchman and a devoted activist, and after viewing it, I couldn't agree with his message more. With the holiday season fast approaching, I think you owe it to yourself to learn about the culture of greed that drives our unstoppable shopping, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a better way to do that than viewing this film.
    5Chris_Docker

    A d-i-y on overturning the market stalls

    What would Jesus buy? Having written to my local preacher at the tender age of 16 (to renounce formally any connection with a faith that I find repugnant), my answer would probably be, "I couldn't give a monkey's." But lest you be put off this rather entertaining documentary, let me reassure you it is not really about religion. Reverend Billy, its key protagonist, is not really a Reverend. And the Jesus catchline is simply to question your unserving faith to the more mundane god of cash-registers.

    Think Michael Moore, Ali G, Aaron Barschak, or Super Size Me. Reverend Billy is a character created by actor-comedian Bill Talen, often accompanied by his accomplished artist-wife Savitri Durkee (Director of the 'Church of Stop Shopping'). Then there's the acoustically accomplished 'Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir'. Think protests in Starbucks, Walmart, Times Square and Disneyland. Rage against globalisation. Consumerism. The ever-increasing debt. Use the feelgood singalong style of modern Jesus-music-churches. Find a tagline line such as 'the true meaning of Christmas.' Get taken seriously faster than you can say, "thanks for the donation" (Billy's organisation is tax-deductible – yes, really).

    Reverend Billy has even started to believe in himself. But is the message any good? Before we answer that question, let's ask if it is entertaining. The answer has to be, yes. Bill Talen is no Aaron Barschak, causing public disruption for the sake of it or begging for recognition. Firstly, he's actually funny. An accomplished entertainer, his puns and loaded lines are devilishly perfected. Visually, he looks like a slightly scary caricature of Elvis, shock of blonde hair balancing precariously on a less than angelical face. Wife Savitri coaches him before delivering the gospel: "Keep your eyes open really wide as you say that . . ." Secondly, he can persuade people he loves them before tearing them to shreds. A sort of Ali G on coke. Let us sing to the Lord, he exhorts on people's doorstep at Yuletide. He hands them a carol sheet. After a traditional start, they realise the lyrics they are singing have been altered. Firstly to damn with praise, then to excoriate. Big businesses, and the shopping sprees that support them, cast into hell. His tour bus meets local churchmen who think he's a holy crusader. Disneyworld-goers think he's part of the entertainment - till he gets arrested. Billy has been arrested many, many times.

    Thirdly (just like the many churches, sceptics might argue), he pulls people in with enough factoids to convince them he knows what he's talking about. Slave labour in China. The horrors of globalisation. Families facing life-ruining debt brought on by merciless advertising. "Give something that costs nothing!" he exhorts. The highly simplified arguments are enough to arouse the emotions of the Outraged Campaigner in any of us. Enough to grab the brain as it hesitates precariously between thinking and laughter.

    Billy walks into a shop and does a 'Laying of Hands' on the cash register. In confessional, he tells a girl she did the right thing for taking a pair of scissors to a dress she was trying on in a store ("It didn't fit"). He 'exorcises' a local Walmart from the nearby graveyard. It's very funny to watch . . . but let's face it, we're laughing at other people's expense. People who are mostly too polite to be as rude as he is to them. Do you want someone disrupting your hard-earned day out at Disneyland? When you're shopping for your kids' Christmas presents, presents you might be lucky enough to afford, do you want a preacher-lookalike telling you it's evil? There is a deep synergy between the Church, Christmas, and the commercialism that mutually reinforces that date in the calendar.

    But to more serious issues for a moment. Reverend Billy (or Billy Talen) has his heart in the right place, but this stuff about boycotting goods from sweatshops abroad . . . It has been extensively proved, by trial error sadly, to do more harm than good. It tends to close the sweatshop and drive employees into begging and prostitution. Answers, sadly, are more complex than this juvenile barrage of love-and-peace would have us believe. They involve economic and ethical strategies, not a simple cutting-off of offending parties. Debt reduction is not about preaching the real meaning of Christmas (which Talen, as a strictly lapsed believer, is less than convincing about), but more about education and counselling. His point on 'giving something that you have created, or a song,' maybe gets close. Putting more love than just cash into presents. But his roadshow may be too commercial to sway most film-goers' hearts.

    I would hate to be one to judge the Reverend Billy. He might do a Bono and or really make a difference. Or he might just be the lever that lets an ever bigger business concern reinvent itself. That concern, of course, being one of the most powerful financial conglomerates in the USA and the world today: Jesus' church itself.
    10mysticwit

    MUST SEE Film of 2007: Entertaining and Informative

    I just got home from the world premiere of WHAT WOULD Jesus BUY at SXSW. It received multiple standing ovations, especially when the audience was treated to a song by the Stop Shopping Choir. It wasn't just because of Morgan Spurlock, a festival favorite, was a producer. The film stands on it's own as a world class fun and informative documentary on the cancer of consumerism.

    Focusing on the anti-consumerism crusade the Church of Stop Shopping, director Rob VanAlkemade focuses on the irrepressible Reverend Billy while touching on the facts. At first Reverend Billy simply seems outrageous, but he quickly brings his message home, using comedy. VanAlkemade uses several experts, and even allows Wal-Mart representatives to counter points.

    This film is a Must-See before any shopping splurge. And you'll likely find you're going to spend more time researching where you shop and what you buy. Go out of your way to see this one!
    7vivisected

    A Documentary, Not a Comedy

    While this film has amusing and humorous elements, it is NOT a comedy and to call it one is to delegitimize it. This documentary explores the commercialization of the Christmas tradition, which it rightly concludes has lost most of its spiritual meaning in favor of gift giving and the shopping that precedes it. The film further engages the viewer to consider the possibility that this obsession with commercialization bleeds into everyday life.

    While many of the points are made by examining the sermons of the dubiously respectable self-styled "Reverend Billy" and his Church of Stop Shopping, which often makes for laughs, to say it is a comedy does not do it justice. This is a true documentary about a true phenomenon in America and a political organization that seeks to challenge it.

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    Storyline

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    • Goofs
      The Safeway (about 40 minutes into the film) identified as Oakland, is in fact in Berkeley.

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • November 16, 2007 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Filming locations
      • Oberlin, Ohio, USA
    • Production companies
      • Palisades Pictures
      • Warrior Poets
      • Werner Film
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $2,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $200,010
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $9,527
      • Nov 18, 2007
    • Gross worldwide
      • $200,010
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 31 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby SR
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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