A shiftless redneck kidnaps a nun for no apparent reason and ties her up in a cheap motel room and wonders how many commandments he's broken.

Oh yeah, he's got several hundred thousand dollars in a briefcase.

I guess we're supposed to think he knocked over one of those Texas Hill Country chapels with the Fort Knox treasury buried under the chapel, but I can't really say.  BAD HABITS is one of those independent flicks inevitably described as "quirky," and since it comes out of Austin, Texas--birthplace of both THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and TEENAGE CATGIRLS IN HEAT which are both artistic milestones in their own way--I suppose we have to give it the benefit of the doubt and say, "Well, hell, they're from Texas." You don't need much more motive than that.

So pretty soon the kidnapping robber decides to test the limits of the Almighty and play doctor with the nun, if you know what I mean and I hope you don't, and right at that moment his catty girlfriend--featured dancer at a Wichita Falls topless bar- -walks in on the scene. Relationship drama ensues.

After a fairly torrid session of Mambo-Molly-Meets-the- Nookie-Monster in front of the bound but wide-eyed sister of charity, all retire for the evening. But when nature calls, our conflicted existential hero has to accompany the cringing nun to the lavatory, a trip she intends to describe in the confessional one day soon.

The next morning our low-rent Bonnie and Clyde prepare to depart for Mexico, but first they have to decide just how Catholic they are and whether they really want to eat Mexican food the rest of their lives. As they argue over whether to kill the sister, how to do it, and just who's responsibility it is, the nun forgets most of the words to the Lord's Prayer, and our evil topless queen waxes suspicious. The climax is not that surprising as we discover that a nun with a gun is not much fun.

This movie got a lot of attention at this year's Slamdance, the alternative satellite festival to Sundance, and it's pretty nicely acted and photographed, except for a few self-conscious moments when the nun puts too much Q in quirky. A halfway decent film debut for producer, writer, star and director Kerry Beyer. It's an Austin thing.

Two dead bodies. Nun-fondling. Aardvarking. Gratuitous lapdance. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for the beautiful Tonie Perensky, as the ruthless stripper who screams "She's messing up the words!"; Cynthia Aguiar as the nun with an active imagination; and Kerry Beyer, the writer/director who says "She's praying--she's connected to God--it would be like shooting God." Two and a half stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

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