FIRST SUNDAY — * 1/2 — Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan; rated PG-13 (profanity, vulgarity, brief drugs, violence)
"First Sunday" is a misguided attempt at comedy that needs to go last on anyone's list of movie options.
With plot holes the size of boulders, it's a bad effort at wacky humor and schmaltzy redemption that plods and preaches gratingly. On top of that, it's so predictable and reaches such an unbelievable (and unearned) sentimental conclusion that what little edgy humor that came before it is obscured.
The film's only saving grace is the offbeat performance of Katt Williams, as a choir director who blurts out whatever he's thinking. He has such a singular way of tossing off his lines that you find yourself looking forward to any time he opens his mouth.
Not so for Tracy Morgan who is ostensibly the more comedic half of the petty criminal duo, which also features a glowering Ice Cube. Cube's character, Durrell Washington, is so broadly conceived that his actions never seem consistent. It's as if one writer began developing the character and another took over, without consulting the other.
Durrell is supposed to be a decent guy intent on being a good father. He's desperate to raise money for his ex-wife to pay off a debt, which will keep her from whisking his son out of state. So, he and Morgan, who plays the goofy LeeJohn Jackson, decide to rob a church — in the most bumbling style imaginable.
It's hard to muster sympathy for a couple of two-bit thugs who would hold a group of congregants at gunpoint and steal from the collection plate. But the movie instructs us we must. LeeJohn at least has a moment of conversion, but Durrell morphs from decent guy to hardened gunman without provocation.
You can't help but wonder how this unholy attempt at screwball comedy attracted such strong character actors as Chi McBride, Loretta Devine and Regina Hall.
Heaven knows.
"First Sunday" is rated PG-13 for some language, some sexual humor and brief drug references. Running time: 98 minutes.