Monday, January 28, 2008

FIRST SUNDAY

“FIRST SUNDAY” (Ice Cube & Tracey Morgan)

I have never claimed to be ‘hip’; ‘hip’ when I was a kid meant you smoked – I never did.
So I’m not one to attend a movie with an all-black cast just to make it appear as though I’m a hip honky, but I chuckled a few times at the preview for this film, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Ice Cube plays Durrell, a divorced dad who dutifully walks his son to the school bus everyday. Monetarily, Durrell isn’t such a good father, so when his ex-wife tells him she can’t keep her beauty shop in business unless he comes up with $17,000 she’s moving his son to Florida.
That’s the set up & if I hadn’t known from the trailer that this was supposed to be a comedy I’d have never guessed it. There isn’t a single laugh in the first 30 minutes of “First Sunday”; in fact, it has a rather somber tone to it as Durrell & his intelligence-challenged buddy LeeJohn try to figure out a way to come up with the quick cash.
The laughs start coming with the appearance of Katt Williams as Rickey, the effeminate leader of the church choir. Once they decide to rob the church, the comedy comes to the forefront & it has many laugh-out-loud moments & then just like a light-switch it gets serious again & the last 20 minutes are void of any chuckles.
Best actor in the cast, Chi McBride lends an air of sophistication to the proceedings as the church pastor who tries to convince Durrell & LeeJohn to do the right thing, but this is Katt Williams’ movie to steal – for without him, this is a serious family drama!

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