Mettons les voiles

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.

I'm not Catholic, and to this day I have yet to actually see a nun. But that doesn't make this movie any less funny.

Nuns aren't what make "Nuns on the Run" funny, anyway. This is the kind of movie where two guys (Idle and Coltrane) are only trying to get out of a job they hate (running jobs for a local gangster) and end up in a steadily escalating series of disasters that make things worse than before. It just so happens that they are dressed like nuns through most of it.

Of course, I thought that the whole cross-dressing thing was funny as far back as when Benny Hill and Monty Python (Idle's old troupe) brought this facet of humor over to us Yanks, and it still works. Must be a British thing.

The whole business with the gangsters, the Japanese and the poor innocent girl (Coduri) caught up in the middle of the mess helps the pot to boil to overflowing. There are plenty of verbal gems within ("'Five Wounds' for short!") and one or two bits of visual humor that still bring a smile to my face.

I still chuckle when I think of how one of the sisters comes to suspect the new "sisters" aren't what they seem after going into the bathroom after one. Get the idea? Good.

Director/writer Lynn has done better and worse but this is one to think of when it's a rainy day and you just want a good laugh that doesn't require TOO much thought.

Eight stars for "Nuns on the Run" and remember: Jesus is small, green and split four ways.

If you have a comedy starring two of England's best, Eric Idle (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid in the harry Potter movies), then you just have to watch. This was a charming little comedy about two guys trying to go straight, but pulling one last job and ending up in a nunnery.

Of course, you have the Catholic jokes, and the guys in a girls dorm jokes, some Oscar-nominated talent, an MBE, and a nude girl in a shower, but that's all icing on the cake.

British comedy is just fin to watch. You won't end up on the floor laughing, but you will chuckle for the whole 89 minutes.

Jonathan Lynn (The Fighting Temptations, The Whole Nine Yards, My Cousin Vinney) wrote and directed this film, and you know he can make us laugh.

Nuns on the Run has to be one of the funniest british movies ever made. From the very start it is genuinely funny. I have been a big fan of Eric Idle for years due to The Monty Python films,sketches etc and in Nuns on the Run is comic standard is definitely up to scratch. If you like a laugh or brit films, watch this.

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.