Richard Pearce's "Leap of Faith" follows the path set by "Elmer Gantry", exposing what a fraud religion is. Steve Martin plays a con artist masquerading as a revivalist who goes from town to town convincing the gullible to give him money in the hope of salvation. But when he stops in a small town in Kansas, a new set of events gets set in motion.This is one of the occasional movies in which Martin appears that isn't a straightforward comedy, if at all. Others include "Grand Canyon" (about race relations in the US in the 1990s) and "The Spanish Prisoner" (about a con game). Martin's character in this movie is a charlatan among charlatans. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't give the other cast members their due. Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Lukas Haas, Liam Neeson, Meat Loaf and Philip Seymour Hoffman all turn in fine supporting performances. It's not a masterpiece, but still a movie that I recommend. It reminds us that these revivalists, faith healers, etc, aren't innocent; they bilk people out of their money. I guess that the title is deliberately ironic: far from taking his own leap of faith, Martin's character does what so many religious people have done for centuries.Good movie.

Jonas Nightengale (Steve Martin) is a fake faith healer leading his traveling circus with Jane Larson (Debra Winger), Hoover (Meat Loaf), Matt (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Tiny (M.C. Gainey) and others. They use all the tricks in the book to con people of their money. One of their trucks breaks down in hard-luck desolate town of Rustwater, Kansas. Jonas decides to 'play' the town and get the girl, waitress Marva (Lolita Davidovich). The town sheriff Will Braverman (Liam Neeson) is determined to get rid of the fraud while Jane keeps flirting with him. Boyd (Lukas Haas) is Marva's cripple brother.I can see why some would downgrade this for its perceived bias against the religious. This is probably one of Steve Martin's deepest characters. There is depth in this movie and compelling characters. It's not really much of a comedy but it works well as a drama. If this was made with darkness, it could be a truly great movie. Director Richard Pearce doesn't have enough style.

Can't believe that I've never watched this movie before. It's such a great one, and I even never heart of it before. Really worthy your 1.5 hour watching it.It's quite different from other works Martin's ever done. It's a great story, with great music, good casting, - maybe not so famous except Martin, good ending. The worst part, I think, is not enough AD :) Well it could be better, but it's not what a audience like me will point out. Like I said, it worths at least your 1.5 hours.I think it's kind of like the movie, 'the dead poet's society', but in quite different approach.

I am becoming a huge fan of Steve Martin's, after all we have the same birthday ;), no, I'm having fun, but I love his movies. My mom is also a huge fan and has a lot of Steve Martin movies, the next on my list of flicks to watch was Leap of Faith. She said it was an alright film, but it was always worth a watch. So I finally sat down tonite and watched it and over all, I'd say that this was a nice and honest film to watch that can touch anyone's heart.Jonas is a con man going from town to town claiming he is a miracle preacher, Jane, his sidekick, just finds out information about the town and Jonas acts like he knows everything by miracle. Of course he and his team just take the money and run after a couple days. But when Jonas realizes the town's good nature, he starts to feel bad and falls for a waitress with a crippled brother. But things start to happen when the town's faith grows stronger and miracles really do happen.I would recommend Leap of Faith for an afternoon of nothing to do, I think that it is an under rated cute little movie that could make you have a leap of faith for anything. Steve Martin isn't really funny in this film, but I think Leap of Faith actually showed his dramatic talents pretty well, he's awesome.6/10