First Sunday

When two Baltimore men (Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan) find themselves in desperate need of money, they decide to rob an urban church, but the caper degenerates into a hostage crisis—and besides, someone seems to have beaten them to the church safe. Writer-director David E. Talbert has a fine cast at his disposal (Loretta Devine, Chi McBride, Regina Hall, Keith David, Katt Williams, Malinda Williams, Nicholas Turturro) but he lets them down with a wretched, amateurish script—an implausible premise, tiresome jokes, and an ending gaseous with phony uplift. He lets them down directorially, too, with torpid pacing that drags to a halt. Ice Cube is still a solid, likeable star, but that look of querulous embarrassment that he’s sported in his recent movies shows signs of becoming permanent (with good reason).