FILMS… Recalling Robbie Coltrane as One of Two Nuns on the Run (1990)

#1990s #AllPosts

 

2 gangland members adopt good habits in this British crime caper comedy…

 

Returning to Robbie Coltrane in the lead in a British comedy movie compared with Some Like It Hot,  but with a religious twist.

 

Coltrane, Idle and Suzman

Idle and Coltrane

Nuns on the Run (1990) – Original Trailer, Handmade Films

 

I was sad to hear about the recent passing of Robbie Coltrane, a much loved Scottish actor and comedian. Back in those halcyon retro days, Coltrane was known occasionally as part of the Comic Strip as one of those alternative British comedians alongside Rik Mayall, Peter Richardson, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Coltrane later took roles as a villain in GoldenEye (1995) and The World Is Not Enough (1999) and in a larger than life role in the Harry Potter film franchise.

Coltrane in the early 1990s caused a wee bit of a double commotion after making 2 religious themed film comedies which horrified some but were loved by others. One of these films was The Pope Must Die (1991) which was directed by his Comic strip colleague, Peter Richardson. Coltrane starred in a leading role with support from Annette Crosbie and Herbert Lom. This film tells of a priest – played by Coltrane – who is mistakenly named the new Pope, as it seems he is the unlikeliest of candidates. The Mafia are therefore not happy with this news and it leads to them hatching some deadly plans to befall this new pope…

The second of these two films was Nuns on the Run (1990), another British film, where Coltrane joined Monty Python’s, Eric Idle. Idle was his collaborator and fellow British comedian from National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985). Nuns on the Run was surprisingly not a hit in America as Wikipedia reports HERE and this article states that the film was criticised for “a lack of depth and excessive use of nuns for humour”. This I feel was a surprising reason as shortly after this film was released, Sister Act (1992) and its sequel were popular in this country. The critic Roger Ebert also took a strong stance on his dislike for this film’s religious-themed content.

Nuns on the Run begins with pretty jazzy and colourful 1990s opening credits accompanied by the Yello opening track, aptly named The Race. The movie begins in London, we meet 2 men in business suits on their lunch break in a cafe. Both men are complaining about their bank jobs. It’s suggested that one, Brian Hope (Eric Idle) is a wee bit sensitive and the other, Charlie McManus is a Catholic. Both these facts foreshadow their future scenes, and these men hate their jobs with a passion, as they have no job security and so they want to resign.

It turns out they are not bank employees but are in fact, 2 gangland members, and their bank jobs of the 2008 Jason Statham movie kind. Their true professions become apparent as we see Brian and their colleagues holding up a bank using guns. After they escape with the money but one man down, Charlie is discovered to be the getaway driver for the gang and is pretty good at his job. With his driving skills, Charlie could easily audition and get a role in The Fast and The Furious franchise as the token Scot gone rogue.

It’s revealed the two men are unhappy as they hate their new gang leader, a young thug called Casey (Robert Patterson). On meeting their “colleagues, Abbott and Morley and their new boss, it seems that Casey would not be a happy man if they gave up their jobs. The deadly repercussions of this are reinforced after we learn that one of the colleagues who also planned to leave was murdered by this gang. Brian and Charlie have to dispose of his body, and both these men are now in fear for their lives as this man had also told Casey that they were planning on resigning.

Brian meets a pretty blonde waitress – and student –  Faith (Camille Coduri) after she nearly spills a drink on him, and who in an ongoing gag has lost her spectacles. She is clumsy and has very poor eyesight without her spectacles. It’s an instant attraction for him and her (after she finds her specs). Brian chats her up and then later gets her a job in Casey’s club after she’s fired. He and Faith begin a relationship and seem pretty loved up.

Charlie and Brian then plan to leave for Rio and plan to keep the money from their next heist. Their opportunity comes when Casey’s gang attempts to steal some ill-gotten cash from the local Triads. Confusion reigns after Faith overhears Casey planning to kill her new boyfriend and then she tries to warn Brian at the scene of this intended robbery. Brian has set a bomb to go off in their accomplices’ car… and Faith is shot.

Charlie and Brian hold up the Triads and their colleagues and take off with the cases with the cash. After they zoom off in their car, the police become involved as the bomb goes off. The Triads, their gang members and the police are now after Brian and Charlie. After their car runs out of petrol, Brian and Charlie run to the only open door they find nearby,  and then these two men discover they are in a convent…

So the only plausible action for Charlie and Brian means dressing up as nuns and hiding out at the convent with their stash. This they plan to do until things calm down and they can leg it to the airport. Brian and Charlie introduce themselves as Sister Euphemia of the Five Wounds and Sister Inviolata of the Immaculate Conception and adopt more feminine voices, add some make-up and wear nuns’ habits. They convince the Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) and another Sister, that they are nuns from another convent.

Sister Euphemia and Sister Inviolata are given a tour of the convent. They are asked to cover some classes with the novices and the convent’s teacher training course. To keep up their disguise, Brian has to learn about Catholic beliefs to teach religion and gets helpful manplanations from Charlie. Charlie has to control his manly urges as Inviolata when he teaches physical education to some nubile young student teachers. We discover Inviolata is a hit with the novices but a natural at basketball but claims to be “shy” about joining those pupils in the communal shower.

Charlie decides they should make for Rio when they can, but Brian is dithery as he is in love with Faith. He wants to make contact with her. We also discover that the convent has financial problems after Sister Mary, the convent accountant confesses to spending 50,000 quid for a drug rehab unit betting on the horses. A priest, Father Seamus confesses that has an eye for the girls, including Euphemia and Inviolata. Then Brian learns that Faith has been admitted to the convent’s hospital… and wants to see her.

This inventive British comedy is a joy to watch. Despite those complaints about the film, I feel it shows nuns as more human, with “vices” such as gambling and drinking problems. Perhaps they were comparing these religious women to those nuns in other movies, as it seems few nuns complained about their portrayal in this film. I believe nuns were seen for the lion’s share of this film in a positive light.

Both Coltrane and Idle have great on-screen comic chemistry as a bromance between those colleagues is seen throughout this movie. Both are more supportive and they continue to look out for each other after they hide out in the convent. These actors’ credibility as nuns was seen in their two sterling and unique performances and was commented on in a review HERE in The Los Angeles Times.

Beanpole Eric Idle and boar-stout Robbie Coltrane, poured into nun’s habits, make a traffic-stopping pair of female ecclesiastics. Coltrane alone has legs that could halt a charging rhino, prompt a papal bull.

This article also advocates that actress Janet Suzman who played the Mother Superior was

“the film’s best actress, spits off her sentences with grande-dame grandeur.”

Janet Suzman added her presence to this role, and she easily brought some much needed gravitas to balance out with those more comic characters. This article also added that,

“The Catholic-school students look like Penthouse Pets wheeled in and out for a shower-room pictorial.”

I would concur with this assessment as all of these “pupils” reminded me of the “older” pupils that attended Brian De Palma’s schools in his Horror movies. These schools were attended by Gillian in The Fury (1978) and Carrie (1976) in the movie of the same name. Both of these films were notorious for their hot young students and their “pupils” were obviously not played by high school-aged actresses.

Many of those comic situations, reminded me of those comedies with actors cross-dressing men such as Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Some Like It Hot (1959) and Tootsie (1982). It is unclear if these scenes were homages to those characters and plotlines from those two earlier comedy movies, or if Mrs Doubtfire was influenced by this movie.

Scenes reminiscent of Some Like it Hot include when 2 male leads are thrown into a similar mode of disguise, but after watching a crime disguised themselves as members of an all-girl jazz band. Coltrane’s “nun” having a hard time trying not to peek as his PE students taking a shower also reminded me of scenes in this Billy Wilder movie where these protagonists have a similar quandary when the women in this jazz band get ready for bed.

A scene where Brian switches his appearance rapidly between himself and a nun and vice versa when talking to Faith reminded me of Mrs Doubtfire. This scene was noted when a similar predicament had Robin Williams as Daniel switching between his male and the female titular characters, his children’s nanny to convince a character.

The Priest was attracted to those “nuns” reminded me of moments when George Gaynes’ soap star character and Charles Durning’s paternal character both fell for the character, Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie, Both little realising she was a creation from Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman), in a bid to win an acting job.

I have watched Eric Idle in Monty Python episodes in a variety of guises.  Both actors convinced me with their dual performance as both a gangster and a nun. Coltrane was selected for special attention HERE in a film review in Entertainment Weekly,

It’s Coltrane, though, who steals the movie. Playing a lapsed Catholic who knows these nuns only too well, he turns his beady-eyed mug into a deadpan badge of sin – he’s the biggest, baddest altar by ever.

 

After this film, Coltrane’s roles reached near-heavenly heights with accolades for serious dramatic television series of all sorts. For the most prolific of these dramatic roles, he returned to a life of crime, as criminal psychologist Dr Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald in a Cracker of a TV role.

 

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Cinema Shame 2022, November

This post was written for the eleventh of my Cinema Shame posts. Other reviews here with this cast include Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle in National Lampoon’s European Vacation Coltrane also starred in Frasier and From Hell. Idle also starred in Yellowbeard. Camille Coduri starred in Doctor Who. Janet Suzman in Voyage of the Damned. Doris Hare in The Avengers and in Never the Twain.  

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