"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
Directed by: Nathan Frankowski

Starring: Ben Stein, lots of unhappy scientists and professors

Rated: PG (brief archival footage of Nazi atrocities)

Running time: 90 minutes

Best suited for: the open minded, the curious

Least suited for: hardcore religious fundamentalists, atheists with doctoral degrees (and 'tudes)

Wow. The L.A. Times calls it "a tiresome ideological bludgeon." The New York Times reads, "One of the sleaziest documentaries . . . a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry." AmericanThinker.com says, "Perhaps only [Ben] Stein could properly portray the Kafkaesque persecution of scientists. . ." The Boston Globe shrieks, "A frenetic, chest-beating film worthy of the tabloids."

All this about a little docudrama regarding a few scientists booted from their jobs. The film is "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," and it's likely to get as many phobic reactions as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Someone once said, "We are all addicted to our beliefs." Think about it.

Actor/activist Ben Stein fronts a thoughtprovoking (or ireraising, depending on your POV) documentary about certain intellectuals in scientific and academic communities being blacklisted for simply mentioning the phrase "Intelligent Design" in classrooms or in articles or even among their colleagues.

Intelligent Design (ID) is an assumption that the universe, in all its diversity and complexity (including us truly), may have been conceived with forethought and awareness. A cosmic consciousness. The opposing viewpoint, as deemed likely by Charles Darwin and his assertion of natural selection, counters that, nope, we're here on our own. Accidental tourists.

When it comes to understanding the Almighty, it appears that scientists and the faithful don't really trust one another. The academics are afraid of the creationists and vise versa, each suspecting the other side of some kind of sorcery. Without telling us directly, that's what this film is really all about.

But my question is: Why the fear? Are our beliefs so tenuous we'd rather snarl obscenities at a film than shrug and say, "Hey, sorry, that particular ideology doesn't work for me"?

Unless you happen to believe that the Earth is 5,000 years old, as described in the Bible, or else that mankind is adrift in a godless, meaningless stew of space dust, one might even see the concept of Intelligent Design as a happy medium . . . a compromise.

In a way, Intelligent Design implies that a being or essence of supreme consciousness does exist. Some choose to call that intelligence "God." Others don't quite have a name. But the ID theory doesn't pin God down to any specific doctrine or religion- a one-size-fits-all sort of deity that, if you think about it, fits the description of what a benevolent creator would most likely be.

Ah, but what about the movie, you ask?

It's pretty interesting. Yeah, a few scholars appear to have been fired for their beliefs, which doesn't seem right. But were other factors involved? We don't know.

Director Nathan Frankowski intercuts ID pitchman Stein with grainy old clips of the Berlin Wall, with various victims of one historical atrocity or another, making sure we get the point.

Look, if you take this kind of visual grandstanding personally, sure, you may be insulted. But if you don't, it's actually quite funny in places, not at all like Scientific American's assertion that "Expelled" "is a movie not quite harmless enough to be ignored."

Well, movies are harmless. It's our knee-jerk reactions that hurt people. Anyone who can't see through the schlocky, inyourface, tongue-in-cheek montage of soldiers and tanks and flagwaving shouldn't be watching social documentaries anyway. Find something less dander-raising.

But is the film fair and square? It's certainly closer to "Fahrenheit 9/11" than "Nanook of the North." Yes, it has an agenda. Few documentaries don't these days. And I suspect most moderate views were left on the cutting room floor.

Watching Stein at Dachau, head in hand, comparing Darwin to Hitler, you understand that the man's on a personal crusade. And when we watch Stein's rhetoric repeatedly interspersed with Ronald Reagan's plea to bring down the Berlin Wall- yeah, okay, that's a little over the top. But listening to another man's opinion just strikes me as downright American.

So, unless you're already swinging a battle-ax, shouting, "Deus volt!" from atop your trusty steed, "Expelled" offers up an opportunity to test your own open-mindedness.