{"id":6769,"date":"2024-10-27T14:01:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-27T18:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6769"},"modified":"2024-10-27T14:01:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T18:01:45","slug":"leap-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/27\/leap-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Leap of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Leap of Faith <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Pearce\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Janus Cercone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cliff Eidelman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 18, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Martin, Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Liam Neeson, Lukas Haas, Meat Loaf, Philip Seymour Hoffman, M.C. Gainey, LaChanze, Delores Hall, John Toles-Bey, Albertina Walker, Ricky Dillard, Vince Davis, Troy Evans.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $23.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s talk semantics. There is a big difference between \u201ca Steve Martin movie\u201d and \u201ca movie starring Steve Martin\u201d. The former term refers to silly comedies like The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains, All of Me, L.A. Story and Bringing Down the House. The latter applies to more serious-minded titles like Pennies from Heaven, Grand Canyon, A Simple Twist of Fate, The Spanish Prisoner and Shopgirl. I would also put Leap of Faith<\/strong> in the second category even though it is, in part, a satire.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Martin plays it straight as Jonas Nightengale, a bogus faith healer who travels the country holding tent revival meetings at which he cons believers out of their money by performing so-called miracles. It\u2019s quite a racket he has going on. At gigs, spotters blend in with the crowd listening for crucial bits of personal information- e.g. health issues, lost job, etc.- they tell to his backstage assistant Jane (Winger, An Officer and a Gentleman) who relays it to Jonas through an earpiece. On stage with his back-up choir, he picks out people \u201cat random\u201d and speaks of their problems. He does a bit of the \u201claying on of hands\u201d thing. Then he sends his guys into the audience to take up a collection.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mechanical problems with one of their trucks force Jonas and his team of con artists to make an unscheduled stopover in a small Kansas town, one that\u2019s fallen on hard times due to unemployment and drought. Since they\u2019re stuck there for a few days, Jonas figures he may as well make some money off the situation. The local sheriff, Will Braverman (Neeson, Darkman), sees right through him when he goes to apply for the necessary permits. He tells Jonas he won\u2019t allow him to con the townspeople, most of who are down on their luck, out of their money. Jane uses her charms to distract Will from his efforts to shut down the show, but ends up falling for him in the process.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What Jonas doesn\u2019t realize is that he\u2019s reached a personal crossroads in his life. He\u2019s about to have an epiphany of sorts in meeting Boyd (Haas, Witness), a local teen who can\u2019t walk due to a car accident that also claimed his parents\u2019 lives. He\u2019s the younger brother of local diner waitress Marva (Davidovich, Raising Cain), a no-nonsense sort with no love for faith healers and their empty promises of a cure through salvation. Boyd comes to believe in Jonas\u2019 powers and asks him to heal him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s been at least 20-25 years since I last saw Leap of Faith<\/strong>. I decided to give it a rewatch after coming across it while surfing Netflix. Overall, it\u2019s a decent movie, but its parts don\u2019t gel as well as they should. It\u2019s at its best when it goes behind the scenes and shows us how Jonas operates. It\u2019s a pretty sophisticated one with the computers and electronics; it\u2019s an effective combination of smoke-and-mirrors and skilled flim-flam artists. Magician Ricky Jay acted as a consultant on Leap of Faith<\/strong> which should you a little something about its accuracy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One problem with Leap of Faith<\/strong> is that it never really settles on a tone. Like I said, it\u2019s partly satirical. However, it leans more towards drama than comedy. Martin doesn\u2019t do any of his usual schtick although when he\u2019s playing it to the hilt on stage in his glittery jackets, you can kind of see the Steve Martin we all know and love struggling to break free. Aside from that, there\u2019s none of the ha-ha funny stuff we\u2019ve come to expect from Martin. The drama, on the other hand, isn\u2019t especially thick or syrupy. The stuff about Boyd never becomes maudlin. The blooming romance between Jane and Will is sort of sweet albeit somewhat superfluous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I kept thinking, during this viewing, what Leap of Faith<\/strong> would have been like if somebody like Robert Altman (MASH, Nashville) directed it. That\u2019s a filmmaker who knew satire and how to intertwine storylines. It\u2019s fine in the hands of Richard Pearce (Heartland, Country) who imbues the film with a comfortable, down-home feeling, but I can\u2019t help but consider the great film it could have been.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The other problem with Leap of Faith<\/strong> is that I didn\u2019t buy the ending. Now I\u2019m not talking about the \u201cmiracle\u201d that occurs right before it. I\u2019m talking about Martin\u2019s character\u2019s reaction to it and what follows. Nothing is really resolved. It\u2019s something of a cop-out actually. The movie starts as an expose, develops into social commentary and then just ends without really ending. The screenplay never fully develops the \u201cmiracle\u201d and what it means to Jonas and everybody else. It also doesn\u2019t complete Jonas\u2019 character arc. At best, it\u2019s vague.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The lead actors all do fine work. Martin is good as a man experiencing crises of conscience and faith. When he takes the time to get to know a couple of the people he\u2019s been conning, he starts to look differently at his life and the path he\u2019s chosen. He also rethinks the higher power he\u2019s been exploiting for profit. Winger delivers her usual solid performance as a woman who\u2019s made a lot of dubious moral compromises in her life and wonders if it\u2019s all been worth it. Now that she\u2019s found a man she loves, she questions if she\u2019s worth loving.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Neeson\u2019s character is a decent, morally upright type who can\u2019t just stand by and let this snake oil salesman bilk his people out of money they can\u2019t afford to give away. At his center, he\u2019s a sweet guy who loves the simple life and butterflies. The leads are aided by a colorful supporting cast that includes rock star Meat Loaf (who isn\u2019t in it nearly enough), M.C. Gainey (Con Air) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Scent of a Woman).<\/p>\n

\u00a0For all its flaws, I do like Leap of Faith<\/strong>. It\u2019s an interesting look at a lifestyle most of us only read about in tabloids or see in movies or on TV. I\u2019ve never been to a tent revival service or met a faith healer. I must admit they put on quite a show. It\u2019s like a travelling carnival in that it\u2019s a means to the same end, parting fools and rubes from their money. If only the movie had the courage to really tear into this subject, give it some bite. That would be a hell of a movie.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Leap of Faith (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Pearce\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Janus Cercone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cliff Eidelman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 18, 1992 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steve Martin, Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Liam Neeson, Lukas Haas, Meat Loaf, Philip Seymour Hoffman, M.C. Gainey, LaChanze, Delores Hall, John Toles-Bey, Albertina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Leap-of-Faith-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6769"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7577,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6769\/revisions\/7577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}