Heaven Help Us

Heaven Help Us
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michael Dinner
Written by	Charles Purpura
Produced by	Mark Carliner, Dan Wigutow
Starring	Andrew McCarthy Donald Sutherland John Heard Kevin Dillon and Mary Stuart Masterson
Distributed by	HBO
Release dates	February 8, 1985
Running time	1 hr. 44 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Heaven Help Us (also known as Catholic Boys) is a 1985 comedy-drama film starring Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Donald Sutherland, Wallace Shawn, Stephen Geoffreys, John Heard, and Patrick Dempsey.

Story

The movie is set in 1965 at an all-boys Catholic High School in Brooklyn, New York. McCarthy plays the film's lead, Michael Dunn, a new student at Saint Basil's. Michael and his sister have been sent to live with their Catholic grandparents upon the death of their parents. Its not clear whether the parents died at the same time or a few years apart. Michael previously attended a Catholic school in Boston.

While attempting to adjust to his new life, Michael also must adjust to the stricter rules and teaching methods of the brothers/friars who run the school. He also manages to befriend his fellow students, rebelling and discovering who they are, along with a reluctant, yet streetwise young friar.

Plot

Boston teenager Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy) and his young sister Boo (Jennie Dundas), following the deaths of their parents, have been sent to Brooklyn to live with their Irish-Catholic grandparents (Kate Reid & Richard Hamilton). He is enrolled at St. Basil's, a strict Roman Catholic school and church, where his grandmother is determined to see him fulfill his parents' dream of him joining the priesthood after graduation. The movie takes place during the time when the Catholic Church was changing their forms of discipline, liturgy, and sacraments. While some places had modified already by then, St. Basil's held on to strict tradition.

Dunn befriends Caesar (Malcolm Danare), a bespectacled, heavyset student with a high-pitched voice and even higher test scores and grades. Caesar ultimately helps Dunn, a midterm student, catch up with the rest of the class. However, because of their association, it also brings the wrath of foul-mouthed class bully and underachiever Ed Rooney (Kevin Dillon) upon Dunn, which culminates in an altercation in front of the soda fountain across the street from the school.

One day, Dunn witnesses a prank Rooney plays on Caesar. Dunn enters the classroom at the beginning of his English-Lit class in time to see Rooney take a screwdriver and remove the screws from Caesar's desk as Caesar is in the restroom. After Caesar sits on the desk and it falls apart, the teacher, Brother Constance (Jay Patterson) orders all the boys on their knees "until the joker comes forward". Dunn whispers to Caesar that he tried to warn him, but his whisper is caught by Constance.

At the brother's order, Dunn repeats what he whispered to Caesar. Knowing that Dunn knows the perpetrator, Constance tries to get the prankster's name out of him by striking Dunn's open palms with a wooden paddle. Fed up with Dunn's refusal to rat out Rooney, Constance shoves him towards the class, ordering him to point him out. Dunn looks up at Rooney from the floor, who delivers a sly grin at him. Dunn lunges towards Rooney, and the pair are separated by Constance and a novice friar, Brother Timothy (John Heard), who has been observing the class, and Constance's teaching and discipline methods.

Both are sent to headmaster Brother Thadeus' (Donald Sutherland) office, and during a moment alone, Rooney, impressed by Dunn's refusal to snitch on him, attempts to patch things up between them, but Dunn wants nothing to do with him. Rooney tries again in the schoolyard, but this time tells Dunn that if they don't become friends, then he has to continue in his harassment in order to save face. Reluctantly, Dunn befriends Rooney, along with his friends Williams who is a sexually frusterated weak bladdered kid who plays with himself 5 times a day (Stephen Geoffreys) and Corbett who is the quiet one of the bunch (Patrick Dempsey). Dunn also befriends Danni, (Mary Stuart Masterson), a rebellious teenage high school drop-out who runs the soda fountain and takes care of her mentally infirm father (Jimmy Ray Weeks).

Other hilarious episodes happen. At the sacrament of confession, Rooney looks at the lists of sins the guys all committed and has them swap them around so each list does not sound so bad. He sees Williams' list that indicated he played with himself over 100 times and only a mere month since his last confession. He then said make that 4 times and divide the others to impure thoughts, bedwetting, and wet dreams and add a few of Rooney's sins to the list. Then when Caeser goes into the confessional, Father Bruzzi becaomes occupied with another student misbehaving in the church. At that point, Rooney goes into the priest's booth and acts as the priest hearing Caeser's confession and then giving him the penance of befriending Rooney and making sure he gets Rooney passing grades.

As a result, Caeser joins the four and befriends them while tutoring Rooney. Then Father Bruzzi gives a classic speech to the school along with the girls' school nearby on the evils of lust before a dance in which both schools participate in. That night, after getting bored at the dance, Rooney and his escort drive Caeser and his escort around Brooklyn and get Rooney's father's car stuck on a drawbridge.

Soon after, Danni's fountain shop is raided by St. Basil's Brothers, looking for kids smoking inside. After the raid, the fountain is left a shambles. Dunn escapes detection, and Dunne helps her clean things up. Later, Pope Paul VI visits New York City (which he actually did in 1965) and St. Basil's school and the neighboring school takesa field trip to Manhattan to see him ride in the Popemobile in a parade. The five guys sneak out of the trip, go to a movie theatre, and see Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii". As a result, when they were caught, Brother Constance makes the guys clean a statue of St. Basil's, which is covered with bird droppings, on the school courtyard after Sunday Mass for punishment.

A deep friendship develops between the two, which one days culminates in a passionate kiss under the boardwalk on Coney Island in a rainstorm. One day, during one of the Brothers' routine "raids", Danni takes a stand and locks them out. When they look into the windows and try to take names, she closes the blinds. The Brothers leave. Later at dinner, they discuss their thoughts of this place and at Brother Constance's urging and at Brother Thadeus' reluctance, then notify social services.

Dunn and his friends walk up to the fountain days later and finds police cars and a couple St. Basil brothers surrounding the door as Danni's father is led out of the front door. Fearing the worst, Dunn rushes in and finds that social workers are getting ready to take Danni away.

A shaken Dunn takes Danni in his arms. Weeping, she wants him to promise he won't be sad over her departure. He refuses. He watches helplessly as she's taken away in a car.

Rooney, angry at the loss of his hangout and at the Brothers for ruining his friend's life, develops another prank with the help of Caesar, Williams and Corbett. One night, sometime before the Easter recess, the boys sneak onto the grounds and decapitate the statue of St. Basil in the school court.

During an assembly the last day before Easter recess, Rooney presents Dunn with a duffel bag containing the missing saint's head, right as Brother Thadeus is addressing the student body with the phrase "of what is ahead for you...". Brother Constance shows up, knowing he's found the vandals, and quietly orders them out of the assembly.

Constance first locks the quintet in a closet. In there, the guys discuss why they think they are in there. WIlliams then begins to play with himself and the guys tell him to stop it. Then another brother brings the quintet into the gym, where Brother Constance sets up an exercise horse and a wide leather strap. He tells the boys that the guilty can confess now or all will suffer for it. Dunn, though innocent, speaks up. As Constance attempts to lead Dunn up to the horse, Rooney clears Dunn's name...but fingers Williams...who fingers Corbett...who fingers Caesar. Not willing to listen any further, Constance calls Corbett to the horse and delivers four strikes from the strap to Corbett's rear. He repeats the same procedure with Williams, delivering six this time.

When he comes to Caesar, he is presented with a laminated doctor's note, presumably to exempt him from corporal punishment. Constance says he'll return it to him after he's finished and orders him to the horse. Caesar pleads for mercy, but Constance snaps, gets very angry, and beats {attempts to badly) the cowering Caesar on the floor. Unable to watch such brutality any longer, Dunn shoves Constance back, ordering him to leave him alone. Constance gets to his feet, and Dunn flees the gym with the Brother in pursuit. The other boys in turn, run after Constance.

The chase ends in the auditorium as Thadeus is concluding his remarks to the student body. Dunn rushes in, knocking over a series of music stands and chairs, followed by Constance, who tries to call him out. He tries to take Michael by force, but Michael resists. Constance backhands him, swearing for the first time, shouting "Bastard!" as he does. Dunn, seeing that he's been cut on his cheek from Constance's ring, delivers an uppercut to Constance, knocking him to the floor and causing pandamonium as the student body rises to its feet and cheers for Dunn.

The boys are sent to the headmaster's office, where they are joined by Brothers Thadeus, Timothy and Constance, who tries to have all five expelled on the grounds of assault. Timothy argues self-defense, and Thadeus, reviews the case and then made his decision, calls the boys in and asks for a reason not to expel them. Dunn, seeing a possible exit from the priesthood through his expulsion, accepts the blame and says he should be expelled. Thadeus argues that since all acted as one, all shall bear the consequences. Dunn protests by saying he instigated the melee. Thadeus disagrees, saying he understands it was Constance who started it.

Constance blanches at Thadeus' remark. Not explaining anything further in front of the boys, Thadeus suspends all five for two weeks and sends them out of his office. Brother Dominic (Douglas Seale), Thadeus' secretary, then comes into his office and hands him a sheet of paper that he immediately signs as Constance tries unapologetically to defend himself.

Thadeus hands Constance the signed document, which orders him transferred out of St. Basil's and out of teaching altogether and into a place where he won't be working with children at all. Angry at what he perceives as betrayal, Constance declares that he will demand an investigation into the matter, taking it to the bishop if necessary. Thadeus, unshook by Constance's remarks, orders him out of his office. Timothy is then offered Constance's job, which he immediately accepts.

The film ends with the four main characters walking out of the school downtrodden after having been suspended, and then joyfully realizing they won't have to go to school for the next two weeks. A voice-over epilogue follows from Rooney, stating that everyone graduated in 1966 "except me". Corbett is married with six kids, Williams works as a projectionist at a Times Square porno theatre, Caesar graduated from Queens College and went on to become a psychiatrist, Dunn (who presumably didn't become a priest) eventually was reunited with Danni at Woodstock. Rooney went to beauty school "where everybody graduated...except me", but became a shampoo boy at a Bensonhurst hair salon, where "the hours suck, the pay sucks, and I'm surrounded by 'funny guys', but the tips are great! Thank you, God!"