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holy high rollers
First Sunday
by rick graNt rickgrant01@comcast.net
D Rated PG-13 96 min
Ice Cube has carved out a dynasty for himself
by making cheap films that enforce negative African-American
ghetto stereotypes. In this crappola,
Cube played a leading role and produced the project.
Nonetheless, Cube knows what ordinary blacks want
in their comedies. His formula always includes the
church, which is an epicenter of black culture, complemented
by black character cliches, including the
street thugs, the church lady, the nutty choir director
and the sweet elderly grandmother.
In this low rent shoot, Cube played Durell and
Tracy Morgan (30 Rock) portrayed LeeJohn–buddies
who commit petty street crimes to get by. A heist
caper is conjured up by the two goofballs when they
hear that the church has raised over $100 grand
for a rebuilding project. As motivation, Durell and
LeeJohn find out they owe some Jamaican hustlers
$17 grand for stolen custom wheel chairs. Yes, the
church rebuilding fund seems like easy money.
Of course, everything goes wrong that could go
wrong, and the two hapless burglars end up taking
the minister and the choir hostage. Amid constant
and annoying bickering, the two dunderheads find
out that someone else got to the money before them.
Now, Durell, who is pissed off that his plan went
south, threatens the hostages with bodily harm if
they don’t scarf-up the dough. Morgan resorts to
his tried-and-true shtick to get laughs, and Cube just
snorts-out his lines like he does in every role.
Director/writer David E. Talbert orchestrates
the scenes effectively from his own script, which is
loaded with hackneyed dialogue. The premise that
certain members of the hostage contingent see that
Durell is really a decent man wears thin when he
acts like a trigger happy killer. The mid-section of
this film is irritating and long, and nothing really happens.
The church pastor (Chi McBride), who spends
the entire movie tied to a chair, brought some dignity
to his role. His daughter (Malinda Williams) had the
hots for Durell and comic Katt Williams portrayed the
nervous choir director. Michael Beach, who like most
of the cast is slumming in this film, plays the role of
the church embezzler. Even though the formula has
been done to death, audience members in the theater
when I viewed the film seemed to really enjoy it. This
proves my case that Ice Cube has his finger on the
pulse of the mainstream black consciousness.
To me, the movie’s running time of 96 minutes
seemed like an eternity as the film plodded on
with more of the same unfunny setups. To be fair, I
noticed that some of the references went right past
me, but the audience immediately laughed. Even
factoring in my ignorance of some of the references,
the film still didn’t measure up to quality standards of
writing and filmmaking.
Only when the black film audiences get tired of
these poor films will the standards change. Meanwhile,
Ice Cube and his ilk will continue to build up
their influence and clout in the business because
their films always make money. The credo is–if you
make large amounts of money for yourself and other
high rollers in the biz, you rise to greatness. No one
cares if you haven’t got talent.
eujacksonville.com | january 17-23, 2008 13