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Brilliant and touching

Admirable film.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This film takes place during the mid-60s in Brooklyn, at a fascist-like Catholic school for boys. The kids who attend this school, have to deal with ridiculously strict teachers, who are all church elders. The teachers walk around in long brown robes, and have haircuts like monks. Naturally, the boys find clever ways to rebel against their school's stifling regulations, and are constantly getting into mischief.Back in the mid-60s corporal punishment was still common in all schools, not just Catholic ones. The difference in this film, is that the teachers try to use Catholic religious values, to justify their harsh punitive treatment of the students. One teacher in particular, is very sadistic whenever he wants to punish his pupils. He locks them in a closet, viciously whips their hands with a wooden paddle, slaps them, pulls their hair, ETC.When a group of boys vandalize a statue, the sadistic teacher tries to paddle their behinds with a gigantic wooden paddle. This is the last straw for the boys, who are fed-up with being brutally disciplined by this teacher. And they decide to take matters into their own hands. This is a good film overall, about 60s teens. It was very realistic, in showing the life that urban teens led in that era. By showing how barbaric corporal punishment was back then, this movie can make the viewer glad that it's been abolished in schools nowadays.I can only imagine how many kids who were in school in the 60s, have been psychologically damaged by getting beaten by their teachers. Since they had to cope with this, it's no wonder that most young people growing-up during the 60s, vehemently rebelled against authority.

Heaven Help Us is set in 1965 out of Brooklyn New York. A new transfer student Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy) must deal with the difficulties of adjusting to the strictly disciplined Catholic school, while trying to find his identity group at the school. There is a geeky kid named Cesar, and a stand-out rebel named Rooney (Kevin Dillan, in a classic role!) At home, Michael, who's parents are deceased lives with his younger sister and grandparents. His grandmother is dead set on Micheal becoming a priest. But Michael, although not explicitly stated, seems to question his role in becoming a priest in seeing how strict the school is.Their no-nonsense almost sadistic teacher Brother Constance, uses corporal punishment in his classroom for students who barely step out of line. This role, played by Jay Patterson in an unforgettable performance may make you wish you HADN'T gone to a Catholic school in the 60's! There are also some nice little sub-plots. Micheal's love-interest Danni owns the local malt shop where the students hang out. Living with her isolated and withdrawn father due to tragedy in her own family, the malt shop is her financial means of support.The school sees her malt shop as a threat to their authority and threatens to bring in law enforcement to close down her business, (which happens.) The students, angered by the school doing this, pull off a very strong prank, which is noticed by the mean teacher Brother Constance at a school assembly.The kids are taken to the gym where they all are to be placed over a saw horse and beaten with a belt by Brother Constance unless the guilty party comes forward where only he would be punished. Typically, no one wants to be a stool pigeon, so they all get it with the belt.Dunn sees his friend Cesar plead to Brother Constance not to beat him, But Constance grabs Cesar and just keeps beating on him and beating on him with the belt as poor Cesar cries. Dunn charges Brother Constance knocking him down and runs like hell along with his friends back to the assembly.Brother Constance soon follows with a look of disdain. In front of the whole student body and faculty, he says "You Bastard!" and punches Michael in the eye. In retaliation and self-defense, Micheal lands a hard hook to Brother Constances' jaw and decks him! The whole student body leaps up and applauds! In Brother Thaedas, the Headmaster's office, (played by Donald Sutherland,) Brother Constance demands expulsion and assault charges, there is some talk of expulsion/suspension behind closed doors. In the end, the Headmaster says that all the kids acted as one and will receive the same consequences.BUT he agrees that that Brother Constance started all the trouble in watching his behavior change (although he always was the way he was IMHO) from an ultra strict teacher to one who can no longer control his temper. The students are suspended for 2 weeks each and Brother Constance is required to take a transfer out of the school and must no longer work with children anymore.This is an excellent example of how religious authority abuses their power,and how the kids can come together to see a faculty members' abusive treatment of them. Friends of mine say that Heaven Help Us is VERY realistic in how abusive teachers were dealt with in those days. What we don't know is, would Brother Constance just go to another school and work with kids again despite being transfered out of one before? Pass the Buck games are often played when authority abuses their power even today. The underlining message that is so powerful in this movie is that there could be so many people in positions of authority, especially religious authority and educational authority who may have violent tempers to begin with and should not be teaching in the first placeI could see some Catholics becoming atheists after seeing this movie! Another reviewer commented that this film should be playing non-stop during the Catholic Church/Pedophile Priests investigations that have really come out of the woodwork in recent years. This movie is not only a comedy, it makes you think with very poignant and realistic experiences.Update: Upon seeing the movie again recently, I have changed my rating from an 8 to a 9.

Many details set this movie a mile ahead of its competition. First, we should be reminiscent of the fact the movie is from 1985. That was the period of the countless "academy", goliardic, school/dorm/frat movies cheering Reaganian America at its best of (roughly conservative/ upper) middle class fame days. We recall Porkies (Canada), Police Academy, Back to the future, Howard & countless others.The back cover of the VHS i got tries to describe it as one's usual sleazy/light/"funny" movie... "National lampoon's animal house get religion -...- when the devoutly sadistic brother constance discovers what's being practised while he preaches! the irreverent antics these unorthodox catholic boys get up to is enough to test the patience of a saint ".Nothing could be more far from the truth. This movie, although technically a B movie ( no soundtrack ala Top Gun, no exteriors, nor interiors; no fancy exotic locations ) is a world away from piquant, sleazy or slapstick juvenile movies. It has no "cheerleader" going around topless; no shower scenes teasing the soft core audience; no row of pranks to be pulled; no cartoon characters ala LT Harris, as that description lets believe (probably trying to set suckers up ).It is the realistic portrayal of catholic irish/Italian boys dealing with a rigid and alas desuete educational system ( ex. the heart-throbbing speech father Abruzzi delivers at the opening of the dance party, finger pointing the dangers of lust and foretelling the excruciating pains of hell for those who dare to taste the forbidden fruit against the church's imparted teaching. Then you get friars making sure boys&girls don't dance "too close" or "inappropriately" ).Mind you, private schools are/were expensive and we thus deal with the offsprings of the upper middle catholic class, with short glimpses of sociological reality. For example, before the swimming lesson, the instructor (also a friar) talks about the need of keeping fit because "killing catholics" comes first in the commies' agenda.It is about teenage psychology ( actors at least look credible in their role, unlike others ). Take the opening scene when the headmaster tests the newbie, making him short-circuit in seconds. Actors are upto the mark.Overall a nice, enjoyable movie worth watching twice.

..and I was an altar boy, and went to church every day, and confession..So watching this the other day brought some of that back to me. There were Brothers in the parish but nuns taught school. As some other comments have suggested, this movie is unimaginable without Kevin Dillon. He's riotous, from beginning to end. He's given all the good lines and makes the most of them. You barely hear Patrick Dempsey's voice at all. I was and am not an Andrew McCarthy fan, but he's very tolerable in this. Its the lead but the less showy part. His scenes with Mary Stuart Masterson don't exactly jump off the screen, but they are adequate to the movie. Movie also gets some points from me for the Elvis references. The guys go to an Elvis movie after seeing the Pope (and get in trouble for it), plus the King is heard over the credits at the end. 8/10.