First Sunday is about two friends, Durell and LeeJohn, who are always getting in trouble with the law. With their latest scam of delivering stolen wheelchairs, they are both sentenced to 5,000 hours of community service. In the meantime, Durell finds out that his ex is planning on moving to where her sister lives (out of state) with their son unless he can come up with $ 17,342 - to open up her hair styling salon. If she takes the boy away, Durell will not be able to see him again for a long time.
While doing their community service work of picking up trash, many hot looking women have been passing them by. One particular hot chick they follow into a church, where they discover that this church has raised over $ 240,000, to relocate and fix up the falling apart building. With dollar signs in their eyes, they make a plan to steal the money from the church. However, when they get to the church that evening (which ends up NOT being empty) there is no money in the safe because someone else has already taken it. The money being taken from the safe means this was an inside job; so, at gunpoint, Durell interrogates each and every member of the congregation that they have taken hostage to find out which one of them took it. Was it the shifty-eyed choir director? Or the well-dressed deacon? Or the mostly blind and partially deaf (but free) church custodian? Or perhaps the pastor's daughter stole it because without the money the church wouldn't be able to be moved? Everyone has a reason to steal the money and even though he knows it's wrong, Durell is running out of time before his ex leaves with his son, so he needs to find out who took it.
I am a huge fan of Ice Cube and I have yet to see a movie with him in it that I haven't enjoyed. This movie was no exception. Excellent storyline with lots of laughs. (Devout church-goers might find a few of the laughs a bit uncomfortable, though.) And as shown in the previews, the Katt Williams character stole quite a bit of the show with his quips. It had a predictable ending and like Mr. Woodcock, quite a few of the funny parts were shown in the trailer, but there were still many more to see and with both the humor and the drama, it was great from beginning to end.
Ice Cube always plays a great father role and all of the scenes with his son were touching. Loretta Divine (Boston Public, Crash) was great as well with her unique comments that always borderline between deadpan humor and condescending lectures. The LeeJohn character (Tracy Morgan) was the bumbling doofus of the film and mostly had eye-rolling scenes, but was still tolerable.
Being the only pasty-faced person in the packed theater didn't bother me a bit because once the movie started, I was so completely engrossed that I felt like the only one there. However, when the ultra-gospelly music started playing at the end, and I could see people standing up swaying to the music, that was definitely my cue to leave. (NOT my type of music and besides....my next movie was already into the previews, so I had to hurry, anyway.)
First Sunday is highly recommended!
Vixy :]
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4 comments:
Vixen lady, do you ever NOT like a movie?
This movie was terrible. I can't believe you gave it a thumbs up.
Welcome, Uncle Gary! Thank you for contributing and hope you like what you read and are a frequent visitor.
Well, I do try to find a little bit of good in everything. If I really love a specific actor, it takes a lot for me to not like him/her anymore. Ice Cube falls into this category.
As far as anything that I don't like? Well, I wasn't too crazy about Dragon Wars - except for the special effect scenes of the snakes/dragons, it was a waste of time. And I absolutely hated Sarah Landon And The Paranormal Hour. And I guess you didn't read my post yet about Aliens Vs. Predator Requiem. That one was mostly a waste of money as well.
If I see previews for it and it looks awful then I'm not going to see it to begin with, so most of the movies I review will be ones that I've been wanting to see.
There have been a few here and there that I saw because it fit into the time schedule (like Sweeney Todd) where I was pleasantly surprised, but those are few and far in between.
I absolutely no desire to see the Veggie Tales movie. Not because I don't like cartoons - because I do, but because I had to sit thru the torturous 5 minute segment (that seemed like an hour) of a behind the scenes snippet for that movie and it was so completely annoying that I was tempted to leave the theater. So why would I put myself thru an entire hour plus of that?
And I have no desire to see In The Name Of The King. That's just not my type of movie.
So unless a Friday night arrives where there is NOTHING new to see, I won't be reviewing these two because I won't see them.
Vixy :]
Hey there, Uncle Gary.
I obviouly haven't seen it, but I gotta side with Gary on this one. The trailer for this movie looked aweful.
I'm holding further judgement until I get home to see Ebert & Roper, waiting on TiVo for me after broadcasting at 2 a.m. this morning.
Damn, we need to get that show back on Sunday morning in our market where it belongs.
I have a hard time relying on what critics say about movies. The first time I realized that I did not agree with every word was back in the day when The Karate Kid first came out. Critics HATED that movie and I was absolutely crushed because at the time, that was the greatest movie out there. Maybe I was a little biased to the fact that Ralph Macchio looked so much like a guy in my high school that I had the biggest crush on, but I genuinely enjoyed that movie and as soon I saw that it got a one star out of five, from that point on, I stopped listening to what "they" said. I know that all critics are different and that there's bound to be one out there that shares my tastes, but I have yet to find that person.
I tend to enjoy certain aspects of films that not everyone else pays attention to, which is probably why I have been able to say that I have liked so many.
Eye candy is a huge factor for me...if an actor is good looking enough and has enough of a presence that makes me go "wow!" then chance are, I'm actually having a difficult time keeping track of the storyline (this happened when I saw Lions For Lambs...not usually the Tom Cruise fan, but he looked DAMNED good in that movie!")
And voices are another thing. Certain actors just have this voice that is so completely engrossing that I could listen to them read the dictionary and not be bored...I had THE hardest time keeping track of what was going on with Michael Clayton because it was such a dialoguey movie (yet, not a dirocom) and everyone had such amazing voices that I was just enjoying hearing them speak.
Did a stupid scene or character serve a purpose? Thinking about First Sunday again after it's been a few days, the character LeeJohn was horrible. He acted retarded but wasn't which made retarded people look bad. His lines were 99% groaners and a few (like with the pictures where the eyes were watching him wherever he went, and how he kept mentioning he was passed over for the food that was being handed out just because he wasn't baptized) were too drawn out. BUT, his stupid character served a purpose...without his bumbling idiotness, Durell never would have gotten into the messes that he was in. LeeJohn was the one with the bright idea to deliver the stolen wheelchairs, and then run from the cops. Therefore, you have to accept and forgive the awful character and move on, remembering the GOOD points of the movie. Like all of the scenes between Durell and his son, showing that he is a very good father and is only trying to figure out how to keep his son from being moved away from him. Certainly not condoning knocking over a church but his bitch of a mother to his son needed to be put in her place with her attitude of how he never gives her any money, yet he displayed actions that are far from being a deadbeat dad, so you are still rooting for him to be able to find the money somehow, someway and robbing a church seemed like an original idea, I guess.
See? I doubt you're gonna hear any critics in the papers or on tv, or hell...even the internet...saying any of THAT. :]
Vixy :]
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