Low Down Dirty Shame, A

Keenan Ivory Wayans is probably best known as the creator and star of the television sketch series, "In Living Color" (which also featured his brother Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey).

A few years earlier, however, Wayans revealed his big-screen ambitions with a riotous spoof of the so-called "blaxploitation" pictures of the '70s, called "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," which he wrote and directed as a starring vehicle for himself.

Now that "In Living Color" is off the air, Wayans is back in the triple-threat filmmaking mode, with "A Low Down Dirty Shame." And oddly enough, the film is a semi-straight version of the movies he previously lampooned.

The central character is a sort of '90s version of "Shaft," with Wayans starring as a wisecracking Los Angeles private detective named "Shame."

As you might expect, Andre Shame is down and out, having been bounced from the police force after participating in a botched drug bust. As the film opens, he is recovering a million-dollar diamond from bad guys, but he causes so much damage to the hotel where the mobsters are staying that half his fee goes to repairs.

The plot begins to develop when Shame is approached by his old friend and fellow police officer Rothmiller (Charles S. Dutton), who just happened to be involved in the drug bust that cost Shame his job. Rothmiller is now with the DEA and wants Shame's help to bring down the drug dealer who caused them all that grief the first time around.

Soon Shame and his feisty secretary Peaches (Jada Pinkett) are on the case, which requires that Shame try to apprehend his old girlfriend Angela Flowers (Salli Richardson). It seems that she left Shame for the drug dealer because he had all the money.

From this brief plot summary, it's easy to see that Angela is the femme fatale that Shame can't forget, and that Peaches will help him see the truth about her as they eventually bring down the drug dealer.

There are a couple of plot twists, but they aren't terribly unexpected. And the storyline is riddled with cliches and awkward relationships that are weakly developed.

What's more, all of the performances are over the top, though some are decidedly more exaggerated than others. Of those, however, it is Pinkett (she played Lyric in "Jason's Lyric") who stands out, handily stealing the show as Shame's jive-talking secretary who would rather be his girlfriend.

There are also some technical problems, particularly in the editing. But the film's worst element is Wayans' tasteless comedy sense, from a gag about handicapped people to stereotypical simpering gays to a string of sexist dialogue that could have been written a century ago.

All of this is really secondary to Wayans' two primary interests, however — wild violence and even wilder comedy. In fact the film careens back and forth between the two with such abandon that the audience may begin to wonder if the entire affair isn't meant to be a farce.

Unfortunately, however, where "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" was completely off the wall, "A Low Down Dirty Shame" is just off.

"A Low Down Dirty Shame" is rated R for considerable violence and mayhem, some sex and nudity and plenty of profanity.