MOVIE REVIEW : Comedy of a High Order

“Sister Act” doesn’t break new ground. Its plot isn’t particularly original, its director is in no one’s pantheon, and it doesn’t feature actors doing anything you never imagined they could do. All it does is make you laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh some more.

What “Sister Act” is is a tribute to those often denigrated qualities, slickness and professionalism. Graced with a clever script, a cast that will make you smile until you ache, and a snappy sense of pace, “Sister Act” is the funniest by-the-numbers comedy in who knows how long, one of those rare occasions where everything almost magically falls into place.

The engine that drives “Sister Act” from start to finish is the irascible mistress of the double take, Whoopi Goldberg. Entertaining as she was in her Oscar-winning performance in “Ghost,” she is even stronger here in much more of a starring role, appearing in almost every situation and easily holding her own among some of the most adroit scene-stealers.

“Sister Act” (citywide, rated PG) opens with a brief prelude in a parochial school. A mischievous teen-ager (Isis Carmen Jones, a dead ringer for the star) is asked by a stern nun to name the four apostles. “John, Paul, George and Ringo,” comes the elfin reply, causing the exasperated sister to grit her teeth and ask, “Have you any ideas what girls like you become?”

Just like that we cut to the most marginal of lounges in Reno, and a girl group knockoff captained by the selfsame Deloris Von Cartier (Goldberg). The songs are familiar Motown standards, the entertainment value uncertain, and the sparse audience of compulsive gamblers and hopeless insomniacs is understandably stingy with applause, but hey, nobody said show business was going to be easy.

Deloris has a personal as well as a professional interest in Reno: Her married boyfriend, Vince LaRocca (an amusing Harvey Keitel), is a big cheese in the hierarchy of organized crime. Fed up with Vince’s refusal to break with his wife and the feeble pace of her career, Deloris is about to quit both Reno and LaRocca when she accidentally witnesses a major crime.

Persuaded by tough cop Eddie Mulcahy (“Regarding Henry’s” energetic therapist Bill Nunn) to testify for the prosecution, Deloris faces the dilemma of where to safely hide until the trial begins. It’s Eddie who comes up with the solution: a small cloistered community of Carmelite sisters in San Francisco. The high-living Deloris is not exactly wild about the idea (“There’s nothing but a lot of white women dressed as nuns,” she complains, not unreasonably) but Eddie makes her see that it’s truly the last place Vince and his cronies would think to look.

The idea of criminal types hiding out in a house of God is at least as old as Edward G. Robinson going on the lam in a monastery in 1940’s “Brother Orchid,” and the humor inherent in women of the cloth is no doubt older still. But “Sister Act’s” playful script (credited to the pseudonymous Joseph Howard but largely written by Paul Rudnik) is not only replete with wicked one-liners but manages the more difficult task of making this well-trod material seem fresh.

The heart of the film, the influence the convent has on Deloris, and vice versa, is conveyed with a maximum of manic good humor. Again and again, just when you’re fearful “Sister Act” will run out of steam, the script comes up with unexpected moments (the sisters do things in a biker bar, for instance, that would give even Eddie Murphy pause) and show-stopping situations that gleefully demand your attention.

As critical as good lines are, actors having the wherewithal to deliver them with brio are even more so, and it’s here that “Sister Act” really stands out. Starting at the top of the order, Maggie Smith as the iron-fisted mother superior who is definitely not amused by Deloris is the ideal foil for Goldberg’s limber performance. “God has brought you here,” she says with exemplary hauteur. “Take the hint.”

An outgoing sort, Deloris, or Sister Mary Clarence, as she’s known in the trade, soon makes friends with the other nuns. And, like Smith’s top gun, each is a classic type impeccably cast.

Kathy Najimy (of “The Kathy and Mo Show”) claims to have based her awesomely cheerful Sister Mary Patrick on “Entertainment Tonight’s” Mary Hart, but wherever it came from it could not be bettered. Wendy Makkena is earnestness itself as the sweet ingenue, Sister Mary Robert, while comedy veteran Mary Wickes, who’s been in everything from “The Man Who Came to Dinner” to “I Love Lucy” in more than 50 years in the business, knows exactly how to play tough-talking Sister Mary Lazarus, a convent veteran who longs crankily for the bad old days when nuns were nuns.

Whether it was in a monster hit like “Dirty Dancing” or other films that didn’t do quite so well, director Emile Ardolino never gave any indication that he could be so adept a director of comedy, so good (no doubt with the help of editor Richard Halsey) at keeping the pace lively and the spirits high. Still, ours is fortunately not to reason why, ours is merely to be grateful and enjoy a comedy that reminds you how good it feels to simply sit back and laugh out loud.

‘Sister Act’

Whoopi Goldberg: Deloris Von Cartier

Harvey Keitel: Vince LaRocca

Maggie Smith: Mother Superior

Bill Nunn; Eddie Mulcahy

Mary Wickes: Sister Mary Lazarus

Kathy Najimy: Sister Mary Patrick

Wendy Makkena: Sister Mary Robert

Released by Touchstone Pictures. Director Emile Ardolino. Producer Scott Rudin. Executive producer Teri Schwartz. Screenplay Joseph Howard. Cinematographer Adam Greenberg. Editor Richard Halsey. Costumes Molly Maginnis. Music Marc Shaiman. Production design Jackson DeGovia. Set decorator Thomas L. Roysden. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG.