Bullet Points: A Low Down Dirty Shame

One only has to look to I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, to realize that Keenen Ivory Wayans holds a special place in his heart for the Blaxploitation movies of the 1970’s. The 1988 film, which Keenen wrote, directed and starred in was a sendup of Blaxploitation era movies and even starred actual Blaxploitation era icons like Jim Brown and Isaac Hayes.

In 1994, Keenen would have the opportunity to do a modern take on “the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks” when he wrote, directed and starred in A Low Down Dirty Shame…

• Door Number Three: Keenen Ivory Wayans plays Andre Shame, a former cop and current private detective. We first see Shame in action along with his associate at the A Low Down Dirty Shame detective agency, Peaches (Jada Pinkett Smith) as they are on a job at a swanky hotel looking to recover some stolen diamonds for an insurance company. Peaches is posing as a member of the housekeeping staff and starts barging into doors. Behind door number one, there was a guy taking a mean shit… Behind door number two, a couple fornicating… Behind door number three, the diamond exchange between two organized crime types. Shame was hiding inside the housekeeping cart, much to the surprise of the bad guys in the room and before it is all said and done, Shame manages to take out veteran action movie henchmen, Sven Ole Thorsen and Leo Lee, but also jumps out a huge window and crashes through the roof of a limo waiting below…

• A Chance for Redemption: After the diamond recovery assignment didn’t go exactly as planned an old friend of Shame’s stops by his office with a job offer. That friend is DEA Agent Rothmiller (Charles S. Dutton) and that job offer is directly connected to the undercover operation that went bad and ended Shame’s career as a police officer. Apparently Mendoza, the drug kingpin Shame believed he killed, is not dead after all, he went into hiding and now after some plastic surgery he has resurfaced. Rothmiller knows this because Mendoza’s former lover, Angela (Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Black Dynamite) turned herself into the DEA and agreed to testify against Mendoza… but now she has disappeared. To add an interesting wrinkle, Shame and Angela became lovers during his undercover stint, which made his rivalry with Mendoza both professional and personal.
• The Villains: Mendoza was played by none other than Andrew Divoff (Toy Soldiers), a proven action movie villain. Divoff’s Mendoza could be charming and menacing at the same time, which paired well with the overall tone of the movie. Gary Carlos Cervantes (Commando) played Mendoza’s right hand man, Luis. This was probably the meatiest role I can recall ever seeing Cervantes in as he got plenty of screen time and made the most of it. But Shame soon realized there was another villain he was going to have to deal with…

• Reunited: After some detective work and an assist from Peaches, Shame and Angela are reunited. Shame says he’s there to deliver her to the DEA where she’ll be put into protective custody until Mendoza can be arrested and put on trial… but Angela drops the bombshell that she’s already in protective custody and that she never spoke to Rothmiller! Shame realizes he has been setup by his old friend, who is in cahoots with Mendoza and is helping Mendoza exact his revenge on Angela and Shame in exchange for a shit ton of money. Now Shame and Angela are on the run from Mendoza’s men and Rothmiller. And if that isn’t enough on Shame’s plate, he now has to deal with the two women in his life, Angela and Peaches being at odds with one another. But all of this lights a fire under Shame’s ass and we get to see Andre Shame in all his glory as he looks to take down the bad guys and ride off into the sunset with his lady at his side… but which one?!?

A Low Down Dirty Shame could probably be best described as a Keenen Ivory Wayans’ passion project. While I doubt I could ever buy Keenen as a straight up action hero, he played the action comedy hero well in this one and his passion for the movie seemed to be infectious with fun performances from all of his supporting players.

The action was bigger than I expected going in, which is a plus from where I sit. Some of the comedy does not necessarily age well, but it certainly was a product of its time. The story is not going to be accused of being original, but again it was a chance for Keenen Ivory Wayans to play the kind of characters he grew up watching and I can’t fault him for wanting to do that.

It would be a low down dirty shame if I didn’t include some Bonus Bullet Points on this review…

• AKA: A Low Down Dirty Shame was released as Mr. Cool in Germany.
• Familiar Faces: Don Diamont (The Incredible Adventures of Marco Polo) plays a soap opera star who really works Peaches into a lather, so much so that she attacks him on the street because his character on the show turned out to be a cheater. Diamont was a perfect choice for this part since he was an actual soap opera superstar appearing in The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful and One Life to Live… Gregory Sierra, who will always be Julio from Sanford and Son to me, played Shame’s former LAPD boss, Captain Nunez.
• Favorite Quote: “Brother, you better show me some tits or die!” – Shame
• Soundtraxx: When Shame confronts Mendoza at a nightclub, Snap’s “The Power” is playing. This is a great song and things truly do get kinda hectic during the Shame/Mendoza meeting so it is a good fit… But an even better fit was Evelyn Champagne King’s classic “Shame” to kick things off.