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Do You Believe? | 2015 | PG-13 | - 3.5.2

A well-meaning but complacent Christian pastor (Ted McGinley) wonders at the faith of a street-corner preacher. Ready to reevaluate his work and his life, the pastor remembers that one must act on one's faith and his subsequent actions surprise his congregation, his family, and the community. Also with Mira Sorvino, Andrea Logan White, Lee Majors, Alexa PenaVega, Sean Astin, Madison Pettis, Cybill Shepherd, Brian Bosworth and Delroy Lindo. Directed by Jonathan M. Gunn. [1:55]

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A husband and his wife kiss briefly in two scenes. A wife kisses her husband on the cheek. A man kisses a woman on the forehead. A husband and his wife hug in two scenes. A man and his girlfriend hug in two scenes.
 A few women wear clingy tops with scoop necklines that hug the outlines of their bosoms and reveal slight cleavage.
 A pregnant teenage girl groans and shouts in pain in the back seat of a car as a man and a woman rush her to the hospital to deliver her baby; when they become stuck on a bridge in traffic, the man delivers the baby in the back seat after the teen mom groans and pushes (we see his bloody hands and some blood and slime on the crying baby's head and it's body is wrapped in a cloth).
 A pregnant, homeless teenager has a very swollen belly as she digs through trash in a dark alley. A pregnant teenage girl looks at an adoption website that features a large, swollen, pregnant belly on the masthead and we see the navel. We see a pregnant teenage girl's huge belly as she receives an ultrasound.


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VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - Two brothers argue and one brother slams the other against a wall twice threatening him about money and they argue about religion until a third man with a gun rushes in and begins firing; one brother jumps in front of the other brother and takes the shots, falling to the floor (no blood) and the other brother charges the gunman and pounds him with fists several times on the floor, knocking him out; the wounded brother dies after handing the other brother a small wooden cross with his bloody fingers.
 A street preacher sees four men stealing a van and approaches to stop them and when the driver of the van points a large handgun at him, the preacher says that he will pray for the four of them, and they drive away; the van men arrive at a dark house, the van squeals its tires, drives in grass, runs through a wall of the house, we see flashes of light in a window as we hear several gunshots, a man staggers out of the house holding his side, a man in a car and holding an automatic pistol aims at the staggering man but does not shoot, allowing him to escape as another man runs from the house with a duffel bag of currency and jumps into the car; he says that the other two men with them were killed inside the house and the two men in the car drive away.
 Among flashing lights and sirens, a male paramedic speaks with a man crushed from the waist down under a large fuel tank (we see no blood) as the victim says that he cannot feel anything; the paramedic prays with the man and the man dies after asking God for forgiveness. After delivering her baby in a car, a teen girl cries loudly as a woman in the car says the girl has lost too much blood (we see the man who delivered the baby with bloody hands after the delivery); the girl asks to pray to see Jesus and asks for the woman to adopt her baby as she dies and the woman cries. We see three or four minor cut marks scabbed over across a woman's wrist from an apparent suicide attempt as she lies unconscious on a gurney brought into a hospital by paramedics and wearing an oxygen mask; a doctor asks if she ate food to which she is severely allergic in a suicide attempt and she says no, and the doctor says to be careful unless she wants to see her name on a death certificate.
 A woman driving in rain while texting crashes into a stopped car and she suffers bruises on her face and forehead; a paramedic pulls her out of her car and carries her behind a truck just as the car explodes twice into flames and smoke; the paramedic and a soldier run to a car hanging over the edge of a bridge, the soldier jumps onto the back of the car breaks the rear window with his elbow and pulls a little girl out of the car, and then convinces the woman in the car to let them pull her out and the man in the car says to leave him because his leg is broken, but they pull him out before the car goes over the edge and into the river with a loud splash.
 A man in his 50s sleeps on a sidewalk bench overnight and coughs; the next day, he coughs into a handkerchief and we see spots of blood on it and he goes to the hospital with a high fever and sweats where a doctor says that he has a serious infection and the man says that he has end stage leukemia and the doctor keeps the man in the hospital, telling him he probably has only days left to live (an oxygen tube is clipped to his nose and a vital signs monitor works beside his bed); a younger woman comes to visit him and cries, holding his hand as he closes his eyes, the vital signs monitor flat-lines, a nurse turns off the machine as a doctor rushes in and signs a death certificate.
 A soldier with PTSD stands at the railing of a bridge and we hear sounds of war in his head: bombs going off, shouting, chopper blades spinning, shooting and tanks driving over hard surfaces; he goes to stay with his sister and her husband, falls asleep on the couch and attacks his sister when she wakes him up, shouting and slamming her into two walls, breaking dishes, shelves and knick knacks until the husband shouts at him, he shouts back and he packs his army bag and leaves.
 A dead man's wife screams as she runs up to the scene, finds her husband dead and demands to know what the wooden cross is that is in his hand. Several scenes feature a man and his wife arguing strenuously about religion and attending church. A paramedic argues with his firehouse captain and refuses to write an apology letter to a victim's widow for witnessing to her husband. A husband and his wife argue about their daughter's death caused by a drunk driver and the mother asks where God was when this happened; the father says that God was asking the drunk driver not to take another drink and the bartender not to serve him and when the accident happened, God cried.
 A man with a gun appears in a pastoral office and demands money; the pastor gives the money to the gunman, who asks, "You believe that when I pull this trigger, you'll see Jesus?" and when the pastor says yes, the gunman twitches, lowers the gun and leaves.
 A seemingly dead man's vital signs machine begins to function by itself and the patient revives and a nurse claims a miracle as the doctor argues that there are no such things and orders a full battery of tests; the patient says that he feels amazing as a little girl runs into the room with an angel figurine, kisses the man and says that she has been praying for him.
 On a rainy night, a man chased by a gunman runs into the street on a bridge where he is struck by a car (he rolls across the hood) and then smashes into the bridge railing where another car smashes into it (we see steam rise from a crumpled front end); another car with an elderly couple in front and a little girl in a car seat in the back stops on the bridge and a car rear ends them, sending them partially through the rail and hanging over the edge as the little girl screams; another car stops and is rear ended by yet another car and we see people in the first car thrown forward and we see a teen girl who is in labor in one of the cars and the male driver delivers her child after saying, "I can see her head" (we cannot see it and the teen is below the frame).
 We hear that a little girl's father died when she was four years old and the girl and her mother became homeless soon afterward; we see the mother and daughter walking the streets, sleeping in a crowded shelter, eating at a soup kitchen and trying to sleep in a leaky car in a hard rain until an elderly man finds them and brings them home with him.
 In a hospital cubicle, a nurse wraps an elastic bandage around an elderly man's leg and we see his face and forehead are bruised while a woman sits in a chair, reading scriptures on an electronic tablet and we see a wide scrape, bump and bruise on her forehead and a scrape down her right cheek. A man handcuffed to a gurney is brought into an ER where he lies in a corridor, contemplating a small wooden cross in his bloody fingers.
 A soldier with PTSD stands on a bridge, laying his three medals and a wooden cross along the rail when he sees a woman across the street, standing at the railing; they speak and admit that they were thinking of jumping, but leave together. In a crowded ER waiting room, we hear that a child has a high fever and we hear a man coughing with the chairs full of people and many men and women wearing scrubs walk through the area.
 A woman cries loudly on the telephone in a call to her father, because he will not come to visit her, and then he hangs up on her. A husband and his wife stand at the headstone of their dead daughter and the mother cries. An older man and an older woman argue about the man's health and he says that he thought he had trouble with his pacemaker, but it was a false alarm; in the car later, the wife mentions dying and the husband says, "You know we're all gonna die" and she says, "If you were a gentleman, you'd let me go first." A teen girl tells a pastor's wife that her stepmom told her they were going to a doctor for prenatal care, but when they arrived, it was an abortion clinic; once inside, the teen was appalled at thinking of killing a fetus, especially after she felt it kick and she ran away, becoming homeless. At the parsonage, the pastor's wife says she is unable to have children. A woman tells a man that if she were God, fathers would not abandon their children and the man says that he would eliminate war and killing, and that he was on a mountain during a confrontation and he saw a buddy of his flying a chopper that was shot down; he could see his buddy in the cockpit, but was afraid to try to rescue him and feels guilty for his death now. A street preacher carrying a very large wooden cross with him at night tells a man that the cross is blood-stained and painful. We hear that a woman pressed charges against a paramedic for illegal proselytizing on the job. An attorney tells a paramedic that he will lose his job, be sued and lose everything else that he has. A soldier breaks up with a new girlfriend, telling her that he is too damaged to have a relationship; she cries and hugs him goodbye. A man tells another man in a phone call that a thug will hunt them down for money and the second man gives a duffel bag of money to a pastor. A man and a woman argue about people praying over food before eating; he tells her to just go to the kitchen and thank the staff and that God should give him (he is a doctor) some credit for saving lives. In several scenes, a doctor says belief is a nice thought, but a waste of time. A woman tells a man (a doctor) that he probably goes by the Humanist motto, "Good without God."

LANGUAGE 2 - 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (old, fool, religious nut, weird, boy, Bible thumping, dork mobile), stereotypical references to men, women, mothers, teenagers, pregnant teens, ex-felons, criminals, street preachers, church pastors, snobs, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, Christians, Humanists, African Americans, Hispanics, exclamations (shut-up), 19 religious exclamations (e.g. Greater Is He That Is Within Me Than He That Is In The World, Thank God, Please Lord, Thank You God, Jesus, Thank You Jesus, Good Lord, God, Jesus Saved Me, In Jesus' Name, It's A miracle, God Really Does Love Us, What Would Jesus Think, He [God] Brought You Back To Me, and three prayers).

SUBSTANCE USE - A man and a woman sit at a restaurant table with full glasses of wine before them (they do not drink).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Christianity, Humanism, healing, miracles, angels, forgiveness, faith, doubt, personal convictions, proselytizing, expressing faith at work, taking a stand, prayer, crucifixion, suicide, murder, death, PTSD, unwed pregnancy, homelessness, danger, courage, sacrifice, crime, consequences, leukemia.

MESSAGE - One must back up one's belief in God with appropriate actions.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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