First Sunday isn’t the most refined moviemaking you’ll ever see, but it gives 2008 cinema a perfectly humane start.
First Sunday (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:73
Fresh:10
Rotten:63
Average Rating:3.7/10
Consensus: First Sunday may have its heart in the right place, but its funny bone is dislocated.
Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for language, some sexual humor, and brief drug references.
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:28-03-2008
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
Combining the hijinks of the Friday series with the spiritual bent of Tyler Perry's work seems like an obvious move. For producer/star Ice Cube, it's also a dishonest one.
First Sunday, a self-described 'funny and heartwarming comedy,' stumbles in the comedy department, but fills the heart's collection plate with a strong inspirational finish.
For a movie that's filled with so many talented comedians, it's shocking that First Sunday is only sporadically funny.
A cringe-inducing, cinematic tribute to the Golden Age of Minstrelsy!
The movie is designed to be uplifting and inspirational, but everything about it is tired and listless. It doesn't so much make you feel the spirit as drain it out of you.
[S]tupid, nonsensical, incoherent, incompetent storytelling guaranteed to offend anyone who cares about the integrity of concepts such as justice, morality, and being responsible for one's own behavior...
The movie's total lack of focus and its unimpressive script should render it totally unwatchable. Weirdly, that doesn't quite happen.
Your enjoyment of this movie may depend on the Tracy Morgan factor. Rarely has there been a comic who can switch from funny to unbearably grating with such speed.
If there's a God, First Sunday will be the last of its kind for Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan, who deserve better than this wannabe screwball comedy about small-time crooks knocking over a church.
While we can't presume to know the Lord's mind, somewhere in the footnotes to the Ten Commandments there must be a rule about not using insipid piety to excuse incompetent comedy.
As the mind wanders during the first chuckle-free half-hour of the Ice Cube comedy First Sunday, a thought occurs: Shouldn't you have to win an Oscar before you make a movie this bad?
It tries far too hard and achieves far too little. The laughs it causes are guilty ones, but not that guilty, because there aren’t that many.
Even as the film's most stereotypical figure, stand-up comic Katt Williams manages to be the only consistently funny character in this uninspired inspirational comedy.
The film, written and directed by urban theater circuit playwright David E. Talbert, is far from polished, but it has a rambunctious energy that's hard to resist.
Though Ice Cube and Morgan should make an ideal team, neither seems particularly comfortable grappling with Talbert's amateurish script.
Ice Cube goes cold in First Sunday, a heist comedy in which the audience gets robbed.
Ice Cube has been taking a lot of heat in recent years for abandoning his tough guy image in exchange for Hollywood stardom, and First Sunday appears to be a compromise.
Who wants reality and a hollow inspirational message after a setup promising madcap laughs?
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