Very Cool!!!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

As a Catholic with Catholic parents, my mother spoke of vindictive and may i say it nuns who prayed on terrorising young impressionable girls and boys in the 40's and 50's, even my cousins in the 60's and 70's. I didn't have a bad experience of nuns but from what i heard the Brothers in the film were exactly like the nuns my family were subjected to. I have watched this film a number of times and every time i feel for the boys in the film. I loved it and thought it was well acted and actually showed how the Brothers and nuns etc are starved of affection and take out there frustrations on the impressionable young people in there care..its quite sad and funny but so watchable. I would recommend any parent thinking of sending their children to to this kind of environment should be made to watch this film, its an excellent and brilliantly acted film. I cant fault the film in any way and all i can say is watch it with an open mind, be open to the innocence of the time its set in and be swept away with the story..its quite magical and took my breath away. I would recommend this film to anyone. Especially as Andrew McCarthys in it.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy) has just arrived in Brooklyn and has started at a new school, St. Basil's for Boys. While at Saint Basils he confronts Caesar (Malcolm Danare) the school nerd, Rooney (Kevin Dillon) the school bully, and Brother Constance (Jay Patterson) the violent teacher. Somehow Dunn manages to become friends with Caesar and Rooney all the while Rooney calling Caesar a faggot. All the while they collide with the girls school and the violent Brother Constance. It is truly a bunch of teens being against authority (what else is new) and trying to have a good time. But soon Dunn's life turns when he falls in love with the local tomboy Danni (Mary Stuart Masterson) and a new defiance comes within the boys causing an uproar between the faculty. The students soon have an ally of their own in the faculty in Father Timothy (John Heard) and helps the boys to come-of-age. The movie is very dark and tells of the a very bad era in Catholic teaching (priests smacking students, banging heads against blackboards, and paddling) and gives a sense of how students aren't powerless. Each character is developed throughout the film and the plot is heavy with points of emotion and depression.Heaven Help Us. Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Malcolm Danare, Kevin Dillon, Mary Stuart Masterson, Donald Southerland, and John Heard.4 out of 5 Stars.

As a Patrick Dempsey fan, I picked up this movie. Only, Dempsey is hardly in it, and barely has dialogue. It turned out to be a pretty funny little movie about the trials and tribulations of five Catholic School Boys at St. Basils in the 1960s. Our central character is Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy), who is new to St. Basils and has yet to learn of it's sadistic rituals and largely paranoid and overbearing Brothers. Dunn makes friends with self-proclaimed genius, Caesar (Malcolm Danare) who's self-gratification can be quite annoying. Dunn and Caesar eventually join forces with underachiever, Rudy (Kevin Dillon), quiet Corbet (a very young Patrick Dempsey), and the horny kid, Williams (Stephen Geoffreys). As such, the five of them get into their fair share of trouble and adolescent antics at St. Basils, which makes for some pretty funny sequences. Mary Stuart Masterson costars as Dunn's girlfriend who runs the soda fountain, a sanctuary to the Catholic School students where they can smoke and cuss and whatever without fearing sanctions from the Brother. She's basically just a nice girl trying to get by and seems like a good match for Dunn. Donald Sutherland plays the rather lackluster headmaster at the school. Wallace Shawn has a small role as the paranoid Brother who fears the potential of the horny student body (just listen to his dumb speech at the dance), and John Heard has a good part as the laidback Brother who seems to be the only buffer between the Brothers and the students. Despite Andrew McCarthy being emphasized as the main character, the whole movie is really Rudy (Kevin Dillon)who has the bulk of funny dialogue and dumb ideas and without which, would probably be just another 'blah' movie. McCarthy's character alone is not all that interesting, and so they needed something to play off of that. And that's what Dillon's character is there for. And it works so well, he basically is the whole movie.I recommend picking up this one if you get a chance, especially if you really like 80s movies.

WARNING POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!!! I would call this movie a "dramody." It has many comic elements, but it also is the very serious story of a kid whose parents die in a car accident and who has to start life over in a new city.I disagree with the previous reviewers who seem to think that the movie was sadistic and/or anti-Catholic. True, the physical punishment scenes in the movie might repel us today,especially those of us who have young nephews who will be attending Catholic schools in a few years.However, I dare say that the beatings depicted in the movie are relatively mild compared to what used to go on in both private and public US schools, to say nothing of boys' school in the UK prior to 1960. (Also, a word about swimming au naturel- it was quite common for schools with pools, public as well as private, to require boys to swim in the nude.The tradition of required nudity started in the YMCAs of the 1930s, a time when swimsuits made made of terrible fibrous fabrics and messy dyes. The rationale was one of keeping the pool clean. The tradition stuck until the early 1980s, when increased awareness about pedophilia and teenage homosexuality killed the practice.) The movie shows a positive side of Roman Catholicism, with the brothers' deep faith. Sutherland's character is wonderful- a stern but sincere man of God and the church.The boys are rebels, but have an inner goodness that comes out in the end.Wallace Shwan is great in his cameo as "Father Abruzzi" doing a rip-roaring condemnation of LUST! The Catholic Mass is always in the background of the movie, and for me, the sincerity of devotion overcame the cruelty of fallible, sinful men. The love story between Danni and Dunne was an afterthought and needed more development. The story morrors my own struggles at such a school-mean kids, meaner teachers, academic pressure, but the Mass and the Virgin in the background,reminding me that wounds heal in time and in eternity.