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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 27 March 2008

Ice Cube, left, and Tracy Morgan prepare to be given some time-consuming community service in First Sunday

‘Robin Hood? Or robbin’ the hood?’

SUNDAY FIRST
Directed by David Talbert
Certificate 12a

TROUBLE follows petty thieves Durell (Ice Cube) and Lee (Tracy Morgan) like a faithful hound when they set out to make a fast buck on the lower side of Baltimore.
In no time at all they owe money everywhere, with a mobster giving them 24 hours to pay up or leave town in a coffin, and Durell’s wife (Regina Hall) planning to leave him and take their son away to Atlanta.
Caught in an elaborate sting, the inept pair are given 5,000 hours of community service, and can see themselves spending the rest of their lives in orange boiler suits cleaning lamp-posts of pigeon droppings.
Not a rosy prospect.
They devise a scheme to rob the local church of its takings – but when they break in they find the committee in session, a choir rehearsing and all of the good folk anxious to convert the pair into the path of righteousness.
This all-black slice of hokum hovers uneasily between farce and human frailty, with some toe-curling histrionics from Morgan, while Ice Cube seeks – and fails – to melt our hearts.
The best line (but is it new?) is when one asks the other: “Are you Robin Hood – or robbin’ the ’hood?”
Not bad. But it can’t save the day. Or the movie.

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