‘Leap of Faith’ Can’t Turn the Optimistic Into Cynics : In “Leap of Faith,” a traveling evangelist brings his big tent and high-tech hucksterism to a cornfed, Midwestern town in need of hope. (Rated PG-13)

Amanda and I had gone to see what this movie was about. It turned out to be about cynicism--a pret-ty big vocabulary word for kids.

We ran into two brothers, Dane, 9, and Garrick, 13, who didn’t recognize the word, nor did they recall the stories of disgraced preachers Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker.

But all three kids liked the movie.

Not only did they appreciate Steve Martin’s familiar shtick, but they liked the gospel singing and the phony “miracles.”

“It was awesome,” said Dane, “because of all the stuff he did, all the miracles, the guy walking without his crutches.”

The boys came with their parents, who had heard a radio personality praise the movie. “He said be sure and bring the family,” the father said. “I think it’s educational. Certainly this is an ongoing social phenomenon. Revivalists still exist throughout this country, and there’s a lot of controversy about whether these people are for real or do it as a show just to make money. A lot of of this faith-healing thing is phony, and the movie brings this out.”

The boys, who said they are not churchgoers, agreed that in real life, some preachers might be drunken fakers who take advantage of people, as in the movie, but that most are probably well-meaning.

And they agreed with their father that even if they are fakes, they can still do some good.

“Why do you think it worked with that one boy?” I asked Garrick.

“Because he had a lot of faith and said he believed in God,” Garrick said.

Never having seen an itinerant faith healer in person, the kids were impressed by the sight of a boy throwing away his crutches and other transformations engineered by Martin’s crafty entourage.

Amanda, 11, liked a scene when Martin “healed” a healthy woman who had simply been placed in a wheelchair. “Everybody thought she couldn’t walk, but she could. Her eyes, the expression in her face was funny. They all said ‘Hallelujah’ and everybody was singing, and she could walk before.

“And I liked their little system of communicating when the girl was in the van and no one else knew.”

The word cynical didn’t mean anything to Amanda, either.

So I tried to explain: “Cynical means when people don’t believe in anything. They’re just very skeptical about everything. Steve Martin was cynical because he thought people were just fools, and he didn’t believe in anything.”

“He didn’t like it that he could fool people,” Amanda said.

“Do you think it was wrong what he did?”

“No. Well. No. He was giving people hope they probably would have never had in the first place. Not from his point of view. From his point of view he was getting money. But he was really giving them hope.

“He said he wasn’t doing it for them, but he actually was, I think.”

Cynicism is obviously pret-ty complicated.

“I think there’s a thing as being too cynical,” I told her as we walked out into the rain.

“Me too,” she said.