In Francis Lawrence’s Constantine (2005), based on the DC/Vertigo comic strip Hellblazer, John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is an exorcist with supernatural powers born of mysterious visions and an earlier trip to Satan’s domain. After spending two minutes in hell—following an attempt to commit suicide—Constantine returned to earth to wage war against the forces of darkness, hoping to tip the “balance” towards the gates of Heaven in an effort to win himself salvation.

John, however, lacks one important element of redemption: Faith. He demonstrates this ignorance in a conversation he holds with the angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), in which he claims that “you're the ones with the problem, not us -- You make these impossible rules to decide who goes up, who goes down and you don't even understand us . . . Why me, Gabriel? It's personal, isn't it? I didn't go to church enough? I didn't pray enough? I was five bucks short in the collection plate? Why?” Constantine has missed the entire point of the gospel (which is, strangely, almost completely ignored in this movie) and is approaching salvation from the same position as the Israelites of the Old Testament, of whom Paul says, “Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone’” (Romans 9:32).

Yet the answer to all Constantine’s problems is revealed by Gabriel in this same conversation. “Passage [into Heaven] requires faith, and faith by definition is belief without proof. You have proof. And that means you're not playing by the same rules as everyone else. Your work has mostly been for selfish reasons. Each of you is born with the promise of salvation preordained. The cost of your redemption is simple belief, and yet you whine about impossible rules . . .”

Even with the truth revealed, John is unable to, if you will, “kick the habit” of his sinful life. I mean this in a very literal way. Throughout the movie, smoking is blamed for much of John’s misfortune, and is very certainly the thing currently killing him via aggressive lung cancer. Although he knows his death is imminent, he refuses to give up the thing that has brought death upon himself. For Constantine, it is smoking; for the rest of us, deadly cancer comes by way of sin. John is hardly ever seen in the movie without a cigarette in his mouth. Interestingly enough, in the first exorcism of the movie, he puts aside his cigarette only long enough to rid the girl of her demon, but as soon as his holy work is done, sin returns to its place.

It isn’t until the end of John Constantine’s adventure that he recognizes the truth of Gabriel’s words and begins to submit to God with a bit of faith and belief. Watch the movie for yourself to find out all the particulars, but, as you can guess, things start to go his way once he lets go of his own strength and puts his faith in God.

And it’s hard to miss the chewing gum (Nicorette?) in the last scene of the movie.

(For bonus points, someone tell me where the phrase “got faith?” is seen in the movie. I had to use the pause and zoom feature on my DVD player to make it out, but I think that it’s incredibly important to the movie’s message and shouldn’t have been so subtly hidden.)