Perhaps moviegoers demand simplicity and cheap laughs more than ever during tough times, but this must be discouraging to aspiring African-American comedians and writers.
First Sunday (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 72
Fresh: 10
Rotten:62
Average Rating: 3.7/10
Consensus: First Sunday may have its heart in the right place, but its funny bone is dislocated.
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $37,931,869
Synopsis: David E. Talbert makes his directorial debut with this comedy about Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), childhood friends with a knack for getting into trouble. Despite his continual bad... David E. Talbert makes his directorial debut with this comedy about Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), childhood friends with a knack for getting into trouble. Despite his continual bad decisions, Durell gets one thing right: he's a good father to his adolescent son. When he learns that the boy's mother, his ex-girlfriend, Omunique (Regina Hall), needs $17,000 to buy her beauty shop or she'll leave Baltimore and move to Atlanta, he's determined to get her the money to keep his son in his life. Meanwhile, LeeJohn needs big money fast to pay off some bad guys. Durell and LeeJohn decide that the collection plate of their local church holds the answer to their money woes. But their attempt to rob the church is foiled in progress: the money is already missing, and the would-be burglars didn't realize there would be people at the church. Finding themselves with a group of parishioners and choir members at their mercy, Durell and LeeJohn have to make some decisions about exactly what kind of men they want to be. FIRST SUNDAY also makes a statement about the role of the church in urban areas and its importance within the community. Keith David is Deacon Randy, who has grandiose plans for moving the church to a "less urban" neighborhood. Chi McBride stars as Pastor Mitchell, and Malinda Williams is his strong-willed daughter, Tianna, who wants First Hope Community Church to stay right where it is and expand its services. Loretta Devine is Sister Doris, the parish secretary and foster mother with a heart of gold. Ice Cube and Morgan have good rapport as the bickering buddies, with Morgan's silliness providing loads of comic relief, but Katt Williams is the scene-stealer as Rickey, the flamboyant choir director with something to say about everything and everyone. [More]
Starring: Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine
Starring: Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine, Michael Beach, Keith David, Regina Hall, Malinda Williams, Chi McBride
Director: David E. Talbert
Director: David E. Talbert
Screenwriter: David E. Talbert
Producer: David E. Talbert, David McIlvain, Tim Story, Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez
Composer: Stanley Clarke
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Reviews for First Sunday
This movie fails as a comedy, a drama, a morality play, and as a coherent motion picture. Awful stuff!
If it was not for Morgan's goofy character or Katt Williams, I would be giving this movie a zero.
Devilish satire outing felons who come in gaudy three piece suits too, a sweltering church 'hotter than Satan's toenails' and Sunday sermon sidebars that all the rest makes go down easy.
The missing-church-funds subplot will be easily figured out by any four year old, but it winds up being a McGuffin anyway.
With his movie debut, Talbert plays to his established audience, the redemption message riding roughshod over everything, even such trifling concerns as character consistency and continuity.
The least funny man ever to make a career in comedy movies, Ice Cube hauls his sullen mug back in front of the cameras for the execrable First Sunday.
Cube's maudlin, overly precious relationship with his son hits a few sour notes, but Morgan's rubbery, half-crazy Leejohn always drags the film back into its manic, cartoony groove.
On your own day of judgement, select a better film from the listings.
Loretta Devine and Olivia Cole shine out as veteran members of the flock, but even their class combined is no saving grace.
Seasoned stars such as Loretta Devine and Regina Hall do their best...but it's an uphill struggle with a script even the good lord would rent asunder.
Grafting moral uplift on to a slapstick caper with mixed results, this nevertheless captures some of the giddy eccentricity of the Ealing comedies it haphazardly resembles.
With its unlikely but sweet-natured story, 'First Sunday' is a cut above most of the "January junk" that floods the theaters this time of year.
Ice Cube is now Public Enemy Number Fun, although First Sunday is only fun if you're in dire need of a modernist urban take on the strain of comedy Abbott and Costello used to practice, which, let's be honest, wasn't that funny to begin with.
Talbert's unable to pin down exactly what kind of movie he wants to make, a slapstick sermon or an urban tragicomedy?
Writer-director David E. Talbert has a fine cast...but he lets them down with a wretched, amateurish script...
If Tyler Perry ever wanted to turn Dog Day Afternoon into a treacly after-school special, it would probably end up looking a lot like this.
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February 07, 2008:
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