First Sunday

First Sunday centers on Durell and LeeJohn, two friends in Los Angeles whose small-time hustling has left them with a debt of seventeen thousand dollars and one week to pay it. For Durell the stakes are personal: failing to settle up means losing custody of his son. Out of options, the pair set their sights on the collection plate of their local church, only to find the money already gone. What began as a robbery turns into a standoff, with the congregation held inside while the two men try to work out who took what they came for, and the people around them push back in ways neither expected.

David E. Talbert wrote and directed the film, his first as director, followed later by Baggage Claim and Almost Christmas. Ice Cube, who also produced, plays Durell; Tracy Morgan plays LeeJohn, with Katt Williams, Loretta Devine, Michael Beach and Keith David among the supporting cast. Made for about twenty million dollars, it took in roughly thirty-nine million worldwide.

Audience response was modest: on IMDb it holds 4.7 from around twelve thousand votes, and on TMDB 5.6 from a much smaller sample. A critics' rating of 3.7 from seventy-five reviews sits below both, so the film fared somewhat better with general viewers than with reviewers.