Critic Reviews
64
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
9(75%)
mixed
2(17%)
negative
1(8%)
Showing 12 Critic Reviews
80
The director Michael Dinner, making his feature debut, and the screenwriter Charles Purpura have an unusually good feeling for the time, the place, the characters as kids and the adults they later turned into.
80
A sharply observed rites-of-passage comedy set in Brooklyn in 1965.
80
A pleasant surprise, Michael Dinner's film manages a mild redemption of the conventions of the horny teenager movie by taking its characters with a grain of seriousness and injecting some light romance and melodrama.
80
This ensemble comedy, with its fine cast and clever writing, has more mass appeal than the conventional coming-of-age caper. The plot, though scattered, is tried and runs true. [8 Feb 1985, p.23]
75
This wonderfully touching and funny reminiscence of life in a Catholic boys high school in Brooklyn circa 1965 went mostly unnoticed by critics and moviegoers alike. HEAVEN HELP US is a refreshingly honest portrayal of teenagers. No character is stereotyped, and events turn out differently than expected.
70
Very funny in spots and wonderfully evocative of Brooklyn, circa 1965, pic suffers somewhat by dividing its attention between outrageous pranks and realistic sketches of the Catholic school experience.
70
It's an unambitious, derivative but engaging little comedy...It's hardly original. It's hardly deep. But, in contrast with much of its genre ("Porky's" and its progeny), it's a model of sophistication, decorum and even taste. It has crass moments and cheap shots, but it's still good: cleverly thought out and gracefully filmed by first-time film director Michael Dinner, who directed the PBS "Miss Lonelyhearts."
70
A reasonably engaging kids' flick that is given humor and heartbreak by director Michael Dinner and a cast of splendidly scruffy young players. [11 Feb 1985, p.73]
63
Heaven Help Us has assembled a lot of the right elements for a movie about a Catholic boys' high school - the locations, the actors, and a lot of the right memories. But it has not found its tone. Maybe the filmmakers just never did really decide what they thought about the subject. For their penance, they should see "Rock and Roll High School."
50
There are a couple of potentially interesting movies lurking inside Heaven Help Us, a film that, sadly, doesn`t have the guts to push any one of its elements to the hilt. The result is a picture that is sort of a comedy, sort of a romance and sort of a condemnation of parochial schools, all wrapped up in a nostalgia piece about the mid-`60s.
