First Sunday (2008)

Director:

David E. Talbert

Writer (WGA):

David E. Talbert (written by)

Release Date:

11 January 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Keep the faith. Steal the rest.

Plot:

Durell and LeeJohn are best friends and bumbling petty criminals. When told they have one week to pay a $17,000 debt or Durell will lose his son, they come up with a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church. Instead, they end up spending the night in the presence of the Lord and are forced to deal with much more than they bargained for.

Plot Keywords:

Church | Money | Singer | Friendship | Slapstick Comedy

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Ice Cube	...	Durell
Katt Williams	...	Rickey
Tracy Morgan	...	LeeJohn
Loretta Devine	...	Sister Doris
Michael Beach	...	Deacon
Keith David	...	Judge B. Bennet Galloway
Regina Hall	...	Omunique
Malinda Williams	...	Tianna
Chi McBride	...	Pastor Arthur Mitchell
Clifton Powell	...	Officer Eddie King
Nicholas Turturro	...	Officer D'Agostino
Olivia Cole	...	Momma T
Red Grant	...	Harold
C.J. Sanders	...	Durell Jr.
Rickey Smiley	...	Bernice Jenkins

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language, some sexual humor, and brief drug references.

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Australia:PG | Argentina:13 | Netherlands:6 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12

Filming Locations:

First Hope Community Church - E. Preston Street & Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Company:

Cube Vision

Trivia:

Film prints were delivered to theaters under the codename "Bad to Worse".

Goofs:

Continuity: In the first church scene, when the choir finishes singing the spiritual, there is a wide shot of the church congregation. Most of the congregation located within the middle pews can be clearly seen giving a standing ovation. There is a cutaway to Durell and LeeJohn in which most of the congregation located within the middle pews are sitting or beginning to sit. After the cutaway the scene returns to same wide shot of the congregation. Most of the congregation located within the middle pews are still standing and only now are beginning to sit.

Quotes:

LeeJohn: [after he and Durell find the church safe empty] Who robs a church?

Movie Connections:

References Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Soundtrack:

Get By

First Sunday felt like a whole week.

What can I say? I didn't expect much walking in. Can you blame me? Did you see the trailer? You know a comedic trailer is unfunny when the funniest thing in it is the studio logo at the beginning and that wasn't funny. This debacle stars "multi-talented" act-rapper Ice Cube whose career started melting after Barbershop 2. Ice Cube doesn't even try to be funny nor does he have anything funny to do or say. Why is this guy even in comedies or movies for that matter? The comedy revolution of a plot consists of two losers trying to get rich quick. That is what the plot boils down to. Ice Cube's character wants to prove to his son that he is not a loser and Tracy Morgan's character wants to prove to the audience that he belongs in this movie. Neither of them are believable. The writer/director *Insert black writer/director's name here* tries to add dramatic elements to a humorless comedy script and fails just as much as he was trying to add jokes.

There is something in this movie about the 2 main characters trying to rob a church and realizing that the money in the church is already stolen, but I was too distracted by the idea that someone actually green lighted this script. First off, is it even an interesting idea to rob a church? I guess the writer figured that banks stopped carrying money. Secondly, who the hell thinks Katt Williams's one liners in this film were funny? The director kept cutting to him as if he said the most uproarious thing since Stephen Hawking yodeled Green Eggs and Ham. You know a comedy is bad when they go to one character for comic relief...IN A COMEDY!!! This movie tries way too hard to have many sentimental and redeeming moments wishing for you to stand up and cheer. But such "redeeming" moments as Ice Cube hugging his movie offspring and Tracy Morgan feeling as he belongs in society felt as if they were added as a last minute script revision because the comedy wasn't working. The hilarity of this movie consists of Tracy Morgan getting a massage from a badly dubbed transvestite. It also includes "pimped out" wheelchairs because a wheelchair with hot chrome rims equals comedy gold. By the way, those wheelchairs are mentioned more times in this movie than Jesus Christ in the Bible.

First (and hopefully the last) Sunday isn't the worst movie ever made. It's not as awful as other urban comedies like Who's Your Caddy? or anything with Mike Epps. First Sunday is by far no Epic Movie (which is definitely a 0 out of 500) but it is clearly a waste of time. Not only for the audience but for the people involved in making it. It adds nothing new and it insults the audience's intelligence many times. I was going to list a bunch of movies that are funnier than First Sunday but after listing Schindler's List, Citizen Kane, and March of the Penguins I got tired. So in conclusion, save your time, save your life, and most importantly save your money. If you save your money that will most likely prevent a Second Sunday.