Mettons les voiles

Every few years someone thinks it would be a funny idea to have guys running around in girl's clothing or vice versa. (Occasionally a Wayans brother (or two) think it would be even funnier if they were also a different race as well as a different gender, but that's another, sadder story.) Nuns on the Run is most definitely a one-note premise milked dry, but it has enough jokes along the way to make it a worthwhile 90 minutes.

Brian (Eric Idle) and Charlie (Robbie Coltrane) are reluctant robbers who lament the old classy days where violence wasn't necessary. Their boss Case is a hard nut who favours the new ways – guns n stuff – and the boys are dropped in the sh*t when he discovers that they want out.

So out of desperation the duo decide to 'heist the heisters', keep the ill gotten gains for themselves and zippedy-skidoo off to Brazil for the remainder of their lives.

Things get complicated when 1/ Brian falls for a ditzy waitress named Faith, and 2/ the re-heist goes awry and they must lie low in the nearest safe place.

Of course this is a nunnery, and despite looking like guys with horrible make up and sounding like guys doing women's voices badly none of the nuns are nun the wiser… or something like that.

What ensues is obvious and formulaic – but funny nonetheless.

We get to see these obvious non-nuns teaching impressionable young girls about religion, (and after phys-ed joining them in the showers!), hear confession, and watch ugly Brian ward off the local horny priest and keep his cover a secret from Faith who has managed to show up at the nunnery.

As the police, the triads and Case's gang all search for the boys and their stolen cash even the nuns start getting a little suss as to their true identities.

Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane are both very strong comedic actors, though it must be said some of the bit parts were cast in haste, as some of the acting is quite atrocious.

All that said the banter is light and humorous and there are some genuine laughs at times. It's hard not to like Nuns on the Run, it isn't blasphemous or too racy and for the most part realises it is little more than an innocent flick with no delusions of grandeur.

Final Rating – 6 / 10. Hard to track down now, and admittedly a one-note flick. But a good one.

Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane are two good-nature low-level mobsters, who are becoming rapidly obsolete in the increasingly violent modern underworld. A twist of fate finds them in possession of quite a lot of money belonging to mean and nasty criminals. Where to hide? A convent, obviously.

A very funny and very sweet film, a good-natured and sneakily intelligent farce. Idle is fine, and Camille Courdi as his near-sighted love interest is hysterical, but Coltrane has the best role as a lapsed Catholic who finds that pretending to be "Sister Euphemia Of The Five Wounds" has awakened a lot of feelings that are inconvenient for a professional criminal.

Warning: Some people might be offended by gentle humor about the Catholic religion, but I saw it with a very devout Catholic and she was laughing just as hard as I was.

It is the British comedy what you expect. Not only for humor but for the impecable script. Lovely performances. And crumbs of Monty Python. Short, a delight.

Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle are "Nuns on the Run" in this 1990 British comedy also starring Janet Suzman and Camille Coduri. Coltrane and Idle play Charlie and Brian, who commit robberies for the big boss, whose cover is a health club. Unfortunately, they become personae non grata when one of their colleagues, who wants out, tells the boss that Charlie and Brian want out, too. That colleague later winds up dead. With their boss no longer trusting them, they are ordered to rob drug money from a dangerous group called The Trinity - but the boss has ordered his other associates to kill them. Charlie and Brian, meanwhile, have decided to rob the drug lord all right, keep the money for themselves and escape to Rio. When they arrive at the scene, their would-be killers are already there. Tipped off by Brian's girlfriend, they turn the tables on the assassins, grab the money, and run inside the nearest open doorway, which turns out to be a convent. They dress in nun's clothes, buy some makeup and become nuns. Nuns who always carry black briefcases.

This is a very entertaining, if often low comedy with good performances. Idle is funny as the lovesick Brian whose girlfriend Faith (Coduri) keeps losing her glasses and can't see anything. The beautiful Coduri is a riot, doing a sort of Marilyn Monroe in "How to Marry a Millionaire" by constantly walking into things. Coltrane plays the more pragmatic, tougher Charlie who can't help going into the girls' shower after teaching gym. He is also the one who really gets into the whole religious thing, being Catholic himself. "I think God is going to get us out of this," he announces. Janet Suzman does a good job as the Mother Superior, who finds the new nuns odd to say the least. But she has some other problems, one of which is dealing with an older, alcoholic, compulsive gambler nun who stole 50,000 pounds from the drug rehabilitation program run by the sisters.

If you're Catholic, you'll get a kick out of this film or hate it. I myself thought Charlie trying to teach Brian about the Holy Trinity was a scream, as was Brian totally botching it when repeating it to his students. Also funny was Charlie teaching Brian the sign of the cross and genuflecting. When Faith goes to confession, afraid she'll say something she shouldn't, Brian replaces the priest, and Charlie has to whisper the absolution in his ear, which Brian messes up. "I resolve you - no, I absolve you of your sins..." Definitely recommended.

Handmade films started off by making the phenomenal Monty Python's Life of Brian, made several fantastic films to follow that, and just 11 years later wound down their production with this hidden gem. Nuns on the Run is a truly British comedy. No other country in the world can do comedy as well as the British, and this movie represents when they got just about everything right. Perfect casting, fantastic scenario and some hilarious one-liners. This was really one of the last great films comedies, with only Fierce Creatures and Chicken Run coming close since. Unfairly maligned, I seldom hear a good word said about it in the film community, yet nobody I know possibly has any criticism of it. It will continue to be a personal favourite of mine, and I'd hope that other people will in time realise just what they've been missing. 9/10.