Bumblers in arms
A church robbery goes awry as playwright Talbert makes leap to film
Playwright David Talbert makes the jump to the movies with "First Sunday," a scruffy but good-natured comedy about two bumbling desperadoes who rob a church.
Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan are the two Baltimore small-timers, and there's something durable and familiar about their physical dimensions and comic chemistry - like some weird hybrid of Laurel, Hardy, Abbott and Costello.
Cube is the burly, surly brains of the outfit, Morgan the space cadet who gets them into trouble, but who's also touched by the kind of grace that bails them out.
Grace is part of the formula here - longtime playwright Talbert actually predated Tyler Perry with the faith-family-food-funny formula. But while Perry's work tends to skew female and include at least one mansion or Mercedes, Talbert is a Baltimore native whose work tends to be more downtown and masculine.
Sympathy here is clearly with Cube's overmatched character, a Mr. Fix-it and sometime hustler who's trying to make support payments to an angry ex, so as to keep his beloved son close at hand.
His schemes sometimes lean toward the shady, egged on by best pal Morgan - they end up in hock to a Jamaican drug posse, after a stolen-wheelchair caper goes predictably bad.
They end up targeting the proceeds of a fund-raising drive spearheaded by a local church, where the two make hostages of a deacon (Michael Beach), pastor (Chi McBride), choir director (Katt Williams) and several parishioners.
The enclosed space makes it feel like one of Talbert's plays, and so does the plot - the would-be thieves find their crime has been preceded by an embezzler, turning efforts to find the missing money into a whodunit.
An appealing cast helps the rickety drama glide easily by. Morgan plays a funny variation of the doofus he plays on "30 Rock" and Katt Williams steals several scenes as the church's skittish choir director.
Williams is a stand-up who appears primed to make a successful leap to the screen - the camera really captures his energy, and the audience often starts laughing even before he speaks.*
Produced by Tim Story, Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez, written and directed by David E. Talbert, music by Stanley Clarke, distributed by Screen Gems.