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All Movie Info
Starring:
Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Malcolm Danare, Jennifer Dundas Lowe, Kate Reid, Wallace Shawn, Jay Patterson, John Heard, Donald Sutherland, Yeardley Smith, Philip Bosco, Patrick Dempsey, Christopher Durang, Calvert DeForest, Sherry Steiner, Calvert Deforest
Directed By:
Michael Dinner
Written By:
Charles Purpura
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Heaven Help Us (1985)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
December 4th, 2007
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'Heaven Help Us' is an often cheerful comedy about boys in St. Basil's Prep School, always under the watchful eyes of the church, slipping out every now and then to drink and smoke, and to meet girls, many of whom come from an all-female academy run by nuns. These are teenagers not unlike those found elsewhere, rebellious and sexually curious, eager to escape the oppressive hand of authority and do what is expressly forbidden. Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy) is the new kid in town, a transfer student, whose devout family urges him to be on his best behavior and do well so he can eventually enter the priesthood.
He ends up befriending Caesar (Malcolm Danare), denounced as a nerd, mostly by Rooney (Kevin Dillon), class clown and all-around jerk off, who doesn't take academics seriously. Caesar is frustratingly intelligent, the kind of guy who knows just about everything, frustratingly obsessive about completing his assignments on time, and complaining if he gets any grade lower than an A. Mary Stuart Masterston is Danni, who falls for Michael, and runs the malt shop that serves as a popular hangout for the rambunctious boys of St. Basil's. Donald Sutherland is Brother Thadeus, the head administrator. Wallace Shawn is Father Abruzzi, who delivers an amusing monologue about the dangers of lust, one that lays out the church's ground rules about sex and impure thoughts, but devolves rather quickly into a screeching, over-the-top tirade complete with colorful imagery. The movie, for the most part, is funny, and offers a nostalgic look at the experience of attending Catholic school in the 1960s.
Not so humorous is Brother Constance (Jay Patterson), a sadistic teacher who takes corporal punishment to an alarming extreme, physically beating students for relatively harmless violations, and whose idea of discipline not only involves abuse, but degrading humiliation. I like Caesar, and John Heard, as Brother Timothy, far more liberal than his colleagues, who enjoys cigarettes and understands that kids will be kids, even when you tell them not to be. The light romance between Dunn and Danni is sweet, especially in the way that he illustrates to her that not all guys from St. Basil's are obnoxious jerks. The stuff with Constance is unpleasant, as it was probably intended to be, and the manner in which he is dealt with, by Thadeus, is not terribly satisfying, as it suggests that he will simply be moved someplace else, that his behavior won't change. Legal action or dismissal would be a more fitting fate for him, but we are left to wonder if there are others who will be harmed by him in the future.
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