Are you ready for a miracle? Jonas Nightingel, a man who travels around the country and earns his living doing what he does best, namely, fraud. That's just Jonas sells gullible people not broken vacuum cleaners and invisible goldfish. Jonas sells people faith. I believe that God speaks through him, so Jonas can do all kinds of miracles and heal the poor. At the same time, Jonas Nightingel and his entire team are absolutely sure that they do no harm to anyone. Jonas plays out in front of the audience of the show and gives ordinary citizens faith in a better tomorrow, but the fact that gullible parishioners are ready to give the new-born pastor the last money he does not care. After all, miracles are not cheap business. But this cannot go on forever. And indeed, in a small provincial town, the “miracle worker” encounters Sheriff Will Brevenman, who sees through the false preacher and who will do anything to bring Nightingel to the clean. Will the brave sheriff succeed, or will the “man of God” find a way to get out of such a delicate situation and leave everyone stupid again? Look and find out.
In fact, despite the fact that the main character of the picture is a fraudster who fools everyone, this film is kind and cute in its own way, as well as most of the paintings that came out at the turn of the century. Yes, the film raises a rather topical topic about people, adults and independent people who want to be deceived. This topic is mostly relevant for our country, because many people remember both Mavrodi and his legendary Pyramid. And now nothing has changed, just the scale has become much smaller, but the deception remained. It would seem that in this scenario, the hero of Steve Martin should cause the viewer a feeling of sharp antipathies, but this does not happen. Why? Firstly, Martin’s hero is a charismatic and bright person, besides he is a natural speaker, which by his appearance is able to win over both people who came to his sermon and the viewer. Jonas is not a bad person, and in his own way he even helps people. It allows others to distract from family problems and mental anguish and enjoy the show. He tells people inspiring words or advises them to make peace with family and friends. It would seem that these are just words. Words from a stranger. But sometimes people just need to hear approving words in order to radically change their lives. And thirdly, Steve Martin's character is a miserable man. A man who's been running all his life and fighting the system just because the system put the hero in a pig. Jonas did not know his father, his mother left the hero on the street, and to top it all, our hero escaped from the shelter and got into a street gang. What can a naive fifteen-year-old boy learn? Nothing good. So it turns out that Jonas Nightingel's whole life was an escape. Escape from yourself, from people, and from God, too. After all, the hero in one of the scenes clearly makes it clear that he himself does not believe in God, but just because he does not believe it does not mean that other people should not believe. And this character of Steve Martin bribes and thanks to this, this film looks with interest.
As for the rest of the actors, despite the fact that most of the people who starred in the film are good and talented people, but in this film both Liam Neeson and Debra Winger and Philip Seymour Hoffman arrive in the shadow of Stephen Martin and the only thing they can do is emphasize one or another detail of the character of this venerable actor. In principle, it's a good thing everyone plays at the level, but still from such actors expect something more.
Summing up, I want to say that “The Power of Faith” is a good and, importantly, a quality picture that is able to please people who, like the characters of the picture, have not yet forgotten how to believe in miracles. Good luck and all the best.
8 out of 10