Some of the plot devices could have been occasions for interesting psychological portraits – e.g. the adoption of the boy, the contrast of the two fanatics and their respective leaderships.

But in fact they were boring, because the filmmakers were so locked into their own secularist and liberal pieties that it killed their moral imagination.

Imagine if they had dared to depict a businessman who was honest as well as grasping, or even capable of some natural affection. Or if they could imagine a religious leader might actually be a believer rather than a conscious charlatan.