History Film / CONSTANTINE

* BottomlessMagazines: Angela's miraculous Smith & Wesson 3913.

* GodAndSatanAreBothJerks: The world in truth is a battleground for angels and demons for dominance. Human kind's casualties and/or souls lost to Hell is merely collateral damage. Both God and Lucifer allow it because they've made [[DealWithTheDevil a deal together]], instead of the almighty curb-stomping the rebellious archangel. Lucifer has free-rein of the planet to damn as many as he pleases. God himself being no kinder, damning souls who not only [[SuicideIsShameful end their lives]] but those who [[DrivenToSuicide cannot handle the truth]] of the world they inhabitant.

* FluffyCloudHeaven: [[spoiler:Heaven is Los Angeles with lots of clouds and and god's rays.]]

* AmbiguousGender: The ArchangelGabriel thought he's refers to with male pronouns.

* HijackedByJesus: The movie removes all elements of non-Christian mythology from the setting.
** The novelisation slightly justifies this by explaining that Constantine's weapons focus on Christian holy relics as he comes from a Christian culture, giving him a greater innate understanding of their power that increases their effectiveness.

* HolyBurnsEvil: Holy water scalds the hell out of half-demons, destroying their human shell, and making them easier to kill.

* ShirtlessScene: John has one before he undergoes a routine lung checkup. And again in the end, when [[spoiler:Lucifer cures him of cancer, because he does it by literally ripping the nicotine out through John's bare torso.]]

* SlowElectricity: When Constantine and Angela Dodson are talking on the street, the streetlights begin to turn off (with clunking sounds) - first far away, then approaching them.

* TimeStandsStill: Whenever people die, or use the FireWaterJuxtaposition to take a brief trip to Hell, the outside world slows to a crawl.

* [[spoiler:TheApocalypseBringsOutTheBestInPeople: This is Gabriel's motivation for aiding Mammon. By creating a literal Hell on Earth, he believes this will force those humans that survive and endure to become better people and thus be "worthy" of God's love. And yes, Constantine flat out says Gabriel is insane for believing this.]]

* CatsAreMagic: They are linked to hell.

* DrivenToSuicide: Constantine attempted to kill himself because he saw demonically-possessed people. He managed to succeed ''just'' enough for it to count as a suicide by the rules of Heaven, but ultimately survived. He's spent the rest of his life trying to buy his way out of Hell [[spoiler:and succeeds by killing himself again but this time as a HeroicSacrifice. However, Satan is a sore loser and saves him from dying, banking on the likelihood that John will manage to damn himself again.]]

* FairCop: Angela played by Creator/RachelWeisz

* FlippingTheBird: Twice by Constantine. One being at the beginning after exorcise a demon out of a girl [[spoiler:and another to '''Satan''' after he finally earns his way out of hell]].

* Invisibility: How [[spoiler: Gabriel]] got close to kill Chas.

* KilledMidSentence: [[spoiler:Chas dies this way]].

* MetaCasting: Keanu Reeves was a very... ''odd'' choice to play John Constantine, but as it says elsewhere, the movie is good if you don't mind its InNameOnly connection to the comic book. So as long as the protagonist doesn't have to be a fast-talking scouse AntiHero... who better for the role than Film/TheDevilsAdvocate?

* YearInsideHourOutside: According to Constantine, seven minutes on Earth equals a lifetime in Hell.

Things come to a head when LAPD officer Angela Dodson approaches Constantine with news that her institutionalized, possibly [[TheCassandra psychic]] sister has recently offed herself. Constantine investigates and starts to uncover a connection to the demons and a possible plot to turn Earth into a literal [[HellOnEarth Hell]].

* [[{{MeaningfulName/Film}} Meaningful Name]]: Hennessy and Beeman - both names not only indicate a significant personality characteristic but [[ForeShadowing foreshadow]] [[spoiler:the way they die]].

* {{Satan}}: Peter Stormare FTW.

->''"Keanu Reeves plays a man in a black trench coat chosen by fate to uncover the shocking truth that Earth is not as we believe it to be, but merely a mundane illusion hiding an army of insidious and overwhelming enemies. So, basically, it's ''Film/TheMatrix'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY with crosses]]."''

The film is notorious among readers for being an InNameOnly adaptation -- in particular, changing the blond, British protagonist into a black-haired American who is more of an exorcist than a magician -- but it has merits aplenty if viewed as a standalone work.

* DeusExMachina: Subverted since it's [[spoiler: Satan who saves the day.]] Though played very straight when [[spoiler: God steps in to rob Satan of Constantine's soul.]]

* ChristianityIsCatholic: Catholicism is the only version shown.
** This is somewhat justified in the novelisation, where Constantine explains that he focuses on these relics because his natural understanding of them based on his background of a Christian culture means that they are more powerful than alternatives might be.

* CursedWithAwesome: John's "gift."

* ThanatosGambit: It probably would have worked had he not flipped Satan the bird.
** Technically not correct; [[spoiler:by the established 'rules' of Heaven and Hell, John was saved from Hell because he wasn't ''planning'' to be saved; he got into Heaven because he just wanted Isabel to go to Heaven rather than trying to avoid going to Hell himself]].

* PrecisionFStrike: Courtesy of one archangel Gabriel

* AntiHero: Constantine is rude, unhelpful to most people, asks his friends to put themselves in dangerous situations (and gets two of them killed because of this) and only performs exorcisms and sends half breed demons back to Hell because he wants to buy his way into Heaven.

* RealityHasNoSubtitles: While the little girl is possessed she screams "Papatayin natin silang lahat!" ("Let's kill them all!' in Tagalog). The audience is not told what this means.

* JerkassFacade: Constantine.
* JustHitHim: Holy knuckle dusters FTW.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Blink and you miss it - there's a whistle of steam from a kettle. A kettle ''that has no a whistle'' (gas only whistles when passing through a narrow slit, so teakettles need a special thingamaboob in order to whistle, otherwise all you can hear is the water boiling).