And Then She Was Nun

By RICHARD CORLISS

TITLE: SISTER ACT

DIRECTOR: EMILE ARDOLINO

WRITER: "JOSEPH HOWARD"

THE BOTTOM LINE: A creaky plot, predictable characters, recycled pop tunes, instant uplift, no style -- how can it miss?

FOR HALF ITS LENGTH THE PICture shambles along, perfunctory, rhythmless, misdirected, wasting the time of the moviegoer who couldn't get into Lethal Weapon 3 next door. Then the ragged choir of St. Katherine's convent swings into a tambourine-rattling version of Smokey Robinson's My Guy -- "There's not a man today/ Who could take me away/ From my God" -- and Sister Act instantly enslaves its audience. A few more tunes, a chase, a conversion % (nowadays every movie needs one), and by its end, the picture exudes the odor of a summer hit.

Anyway, it stinks of calculation. The film -- about a Reno singer (Whoopi Goldberg) finding refuge from her gangster lover (Harvey Keitel) in a dilapidated convent run by staid Maggie Smith -- allows no room for irony, vagrant inspiration or air. There's something piquant about the look of Whoopi in a wimple, but the star must soar or sink with the vehicle, and this one is a bathysphere. Despite a nice turn by Kathy Najimy as a criminally chirpy nun and some inventive charts by ace arranger Marc Shaiman, Sister Act has corporate fingerprints smudging its smiling face.

The movie began as a screenplay written for Bette Midler by playwright Paul Rudnick (Poor Little Lambs, I Hate Hamlet). When she said no thanks, the script became an orphan with many foster parents, and the usual Hollywood bustle commenced, with a new star and half a dozen new writers (including Carrie Fisher). In arbitration, the Writers Guild ruled that Rudnick was the only writer who deserved screen credit, but he declined the honor. "Joseph Howard" is the pseudonym for a committee.

This process does not ensure drivel. Casablanca had seven writers, Tootsie eight, It's a Wonderful Life 10, yet each film summoned a seamless verbal style, abundant in wit. These commodities are out of fashion today. Sister Act could have been written by one guy who looked at old movies and decided they were about spiritual uplift made easy. If the picture in fact turns out to be a hit, Midler may be miserable, but the suits will be happy. It will prove to them that films needn't be written; they can be assembled like Lego blocks. To others it will prove that moviemaking has become a sort of limbo dance: the lower you go, the higher you score.