Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine, Katt Williams, Michael Beach, Chi McBride, Olivia Cole.  Written and directed by David E. Talbert.  Rated PG-13. 96 minutes.  Sony Pictures. 

First Sunday, the new comedy about a couple of unlikely Baltimore robbers who attempt to knock off a church before undergoing a change of heart, is beneath the talents of its cast, managing laughs at the expense of stereotypes and forcing requisite schmaltz with a mixed message about making the right choices in life.   

Broke and unemployed Durell (Ice Cube) faces losing his son if he can’t produce a quick $17,000 with the help of best friend and dimwitted moron LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), who has a speech—and brain—impediment, allowing actor Morgan to cut loose with a verbal affectation than ranges from annoying to somewhat tolerable.  The pair quickly gets down to the business of robbing a church collection (you read that right) in order to payoff Durell’s ex and prevent his adolescent son’s departure to Atlanta. 

The film’s inept opening third is absolutely unfunny, filled with tired gags—a car chase complete with requisite exploding fruit stands and wheelchairs falling out of the back of a truck; a crass visit to a massage parlor involving tired gay panic slapstick set to Minnie Riperton’s Loving You, which treats the idea of a man massaging another man as a repulsive grotesquerie. 

The odd couple settles down in the church only to find the cash has already been pilfered, encountering a group of parishioners/hostages played with relish by a solid supporting cast. 

There’s the slick deacon (Michael Beach), flamboyant choir director (Katt Williams), sweet secretary (Loretta Devine), wise soul (Olivia Cole), sympathetic pastor (Chi McBride) and his comely young daughter (Malinda Williams). 

Prolific writer/director David E. Talbert fashions this story as a morality play where two hapless thieves encounter a handful of church folk who spread the good word about God and personal responsibility while paying no mind to being potential victims of violent crime.  It goes without saying that the congregation will work its soul-nourishing magic, a hackneyed conversion where everyone learns lessons in right and wrong.  That the radiant Devine and Cole have two effective scenes—one involving a happy birthday and the other a lecture on courage—is somewhat surprising given the crude context in which they are working. 

Special mention goes to Katt Williams for taking a potentially offensive fey stereotype and getting politically incorrect laughs with sass, whether chiding an overweight singer about being a "moth" or misconstruing the word "miscreant" in a phoney baloney climactic court trial.  I shouldn’t have laughed at this shtick, but I couldn’t help myself—he is that funny. 

The film is pitched at an African American audience and after seeing Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, one would hope moviegoers head down the multiplex hallway to better fare.  If not, at least Devine and Williams make their scenes somewhat worthwhile, pulling out a few laughs and a little grace from this uneven film.  

A notable distraction in First Sunday lies in Ice Cube’s performance.  While Morgan remains in full-on sketch comedy mode, angry Cube is just too menacing with a weapon and out of sync with the film’s comic tone.  Perhaps if the film had not used guns, it may have been the innocuous, feel-good lesson it aims to be.  

There’s something unsettling about a comedy peddling warm and fuzzy family values that asks us to identify with a protagonist committing armed robbery of a church, waving a pistol he seems very capable of using.  The film’s finale lets him off the hook, actually believing him to be a fatherly role model.  It’s amazing. 

How am I going to explain that to my ten-year-old? 

- Lee Shoquist