BEFORE: Everyone's saying it's "Shark Week", but not around these parts. Here it's still religion week, at least for a couple more nights. I didn't follow up with "Oh God! You Devil" since I've already seen that, so even though it's not a direct follow-up, I think this is still sort a connection, and this franchise helps set up the next chain. Linking from last night's film, Dr. Joyce Brothers also had a cameo in "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1", and so did Whoopi Goldberg (last heard in "Toy Story 3").
THE PLOT: When a singer witnesses a mob crime, the police hide her as a nun in a traditional convent where she has trouble fitting in.
AFTER: Really, this is mostly derivative of "Some Like It Hot", since the main characters in that film also witnessed a mob hit, only mixed with something like "Nuns on the Run" or "We're No Angels". Your basic witness protection "fish out of water" story. Mostly, that is.
I thought this would be pretty corny or sappy, but it wasn't too bad in that regard. And I do have a background singing in both church choirs and a cappella groups, so I appreciate the work that was done arranging songs for those formats, especially mash-ups of gospel songs with Motown hits.
There's no subtlety to the humor, but that's sort of a positive and a negative at the same time - it's all laid out there, so even the jokes that didn't land were at least recognizable as honest attempts. And that gave it a form of sincerity, despite a cookie-cutter plot, a fairly simple casino-based climax, and the mistaken assumption that the only thing keeping people from going to church is the lack of better music.
Also starring Maggie Smith (last seen in "The First Wives Club"), Harvey Keitel (last seen in "Little Fockers"), Kathy Najimy (last heard in "Tom & Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers"), Bill Nunn (last seen in "Mo' Better Blues"), and all kinds of character actors, including Pat Crawford Brown, Ellen Albertini Dow (last seen in "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"), Mary Wickes, Joseph Maher.
RATING: 5 out of 10 vocal solos
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