Product Details

• Actors: Donald Sutherland, John Heard, Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon
• Directors: Michael Dinner
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: HBO Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 30, 2005
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0007TKNEC
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,631 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
When 16 year old Michael Dunn arrives at Catholic school, all hell breaks loose in this hilarious coming-of-age comedy. An unforgettable romp through days of innocence and nights of discovery when boys were boys, and girls were waiting to be discovered.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sweet, underrated coming of age story., March 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Heaven Help Us (1985) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Heaven Help Us" is a story of growing up Catholic in the Brooklyn of the mid-60's. A story of friendship and first love.

Andrew McCarthy plays Michael Dunn, a sensitive teenager, who along with his sister, has to come to live with grandparents in Brooklyn after the deaths of their parents. There he attends an all-boys Catholic high school, St. Basil's. Being the new kid, he has a tough time adjusting; but eventually befriends an outcast intellectual, Caesar; a not too bright, troublemaker, Rooney; and Rooney's not too bright toadies, Williams and Corbet. Dunn also strikes up a relationship with Danni, a girl who works at the local soda shop. This causes friction with his school because the shop is supposed to be off-limits for St. Basil students, and with his family who want him to become a priest. In spite of those barriers, a very sweet romance blossoms between Dunn and Danni.

"Heaven Help Us" contains alot of laughs, mainly from Kevin Dillon's rather obtuse character, Rooney. It boasts a great soundtrack of mid-60's motown tunes. There is also a definite "Celtic" taste to this movie. The surnames of the characters are mostly Irish: Dunn, Rooney, Corbet; as are the actors who play those roles: McCarthy, Dillon, and Dempsey. Occasionally, the soundtrack breaks into tradional Celtic music with bodhrans and uillean pipes which further emphasizes the film's Irish-American focus; even though the word "Irish" is never mentioned.

Overall, one of the most overlooked teen films of the 80's. A fun, sweet, little movie.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Catholic school favorite., June 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Heaven Help Us (1985) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have yet to meet a Catholic school alum who did not like "Heaven Help Us." It will appeal to all generations of former Catholic school students due to its mix of sentiment, humor, nostalgia, and stereotypes. If you're a Catholic school grad you're going to like this one even if you, like myself, went to a school in which lay people made up the majority of the faculty and corporal punishment was a myth from the distant past of your parents' schooldays.

"Heaven Help Us" is a comedy about teenage boys trying to survive their days at a Brooklyn all boys Catholic high school in the mid-1960s. It's a rather episodic film dealing with how school, home, girls, and the Church effect the lives of these teenagers. Set in the pre-Vatican II days of the Church, the movie shows the influence that institution then had on the everyday lives of its followers.

"Heaven Help Us" is a comedy, but it also has several serious and very sentimental moments, which are quite well done. However, those serious scenes may be the reason why this film bombed at the box office. If I remember correctly this movie was mistakenly advertised as a sort of "Porky's Goes to Catholic School." Thus, people, who went to see it thinking it was a raunchy, teen, sex comedy, came away disappointed because it's not a sex comedy! There is a nice romance, an on-going joke about one character being unable to "master his domain," and another character is stopped in his advances towards his drunk girlfriend in a very gross way, but no real sex. However, people, who may have been interested in seeing a comedic, coming of age story (which is what "Heaven Help Us" really is), did not see it either due to its poorly thought out ad campaign.

This movie is occassionally shown on television, but it's usually hacked to pieces because of some of its language. Kevin Dillon's moronic character has a penchent for using a homosexual slur against everyone and everything, which is a realistic thing for a teenage boy to do, but not allowed in our PC world today so his lines are always edited. That's a shame because those are among the funniest lines in the movie.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nostalgic At Its Best!, July 5, 2002

By	Michael (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heaven Help Us (1985) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

One day I was flipping the channels and turned to Comedy Central...They were showing Heaven Help Us and I'm glad I kept on watching it. I went to catholic school from 2nd grade on through high school and yes, I attended an all boys school (Loyola High School of Los Angeles).

Heaven Help Us reminded me of the crazy things that go on in a school where you don't have to worry about embarrasing yourself in front of girls. We were kind of in our own world. I remember the all girls school just a couple of blocks away, as in the movie. When the priest came over to the five characters in the assembly, I was reminded of when a priest did the same thing to some of us during a high school mass.

This is a coming of age story and I haven't found a person who has hated the movie. It's too bad that it's not as acclaimed as it should be. It should be considered an American Classic. To me it is. The scene where the student is snatched away from mass for using his own clicker to make the student body sit and stand is 100% classic!