Keenan Ivory Wayans stars as an ex-cop whose unit was killed. Now he is a broke PI with Jada Pinkett-Smith as his girl Friday. Wayans is hired by DEA agent Charles S. Dutton to track down Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Wayans' ex-lover, and the ex-lover of dead drug kingpin Andrew Divoff. But Divoff is not dead, and Dutton is working with him.

It hits every cliche in 1990s 'tec movies, and not in a good way. This being Wayans, I came in expecting to see some funny sequences, but if it is intended as a burlesque of the form, it went past me without stopping for more than a chuckle; even the bit in which Wayans is trying to get information out of Gary Carlos Cervantes and they run into a White Power group lacks any sense of irony. As a straight action movie, it stretches credulity without ever quite being absurd. The fight sequences are edited in tiny clips to make them work; and while the two women are very attractive, their cat fight doesn't have any oomph due to the editing.

This could probably have been an OK action-comedy, had it been done right. Unfortunately, the whole movie is done completely by formula; the comic sidekick, the traitorous agent, the villain who doesn't have a single likable quality. Why is it that every single bad guy in 90's action-thrillers have to be a drug-lord? Seriously, it's getting old. Furthermore, all the 'comedy' consists of racial and sexual stereotypes. Have the Wayans' brothers actually made something that was good? I've never seen anything worthwhile from them. The plot is a simple rehash of hundreds of other action movies. The acting is mediocre, at best. The characters are mostly one-dimensional. The action is OK, but nothing you haven't already seen in hundreds of action movies before this one. I feel sorry for Jada Pinkett, having to play such a stereotypical character; she deserves better. Nearly any actor/actress does. I'd only recommend this to actual fans of the Wayans' brothers, as most others will just cringe at the utter lack of originality. 5/10

I hired thus movie because I thought a scene on the previews where he sings James Brown to three vicious dogs and pacifies them was cool, but now I wish I didn't. Basically Low-Down-Dirty Shame is a boring clichéd movie that is just full of black jive. This is a movie where the cool black dude is not just stereotypical, but everywhere. Not only is Shame (Keenan Ivory Wayans) a cool black guy, but so is his secretary Peaches. What really annoyed me is that at the end those two got together and basically it was a relationship that just didn't seem right. When I create relationships, there is just something about them that make them seem right (not that they will work, rather just seem realistic).

Low Down Dirty Shame is about an ex-cop who has become a private detective but his work is a little slow and he has a habit of losing his pay because he causes too much damage. The down and out detective is just too clichéd to be believable. Yet even though he is almost bankrupt, somehow he still has a cool car, heaps of guns, and a nice suit. Seriously this movie is just stretches the imagination too far. The plot is also too clichéd. He is after a Mexican drug-lord which seems to be the focus of every pointless cop movie these days. The twist is that this drug-lord is supposed to be dead, killed by Shame a few years earlier. Not only is this clichéd but the annoying Lieutenant is just as bad because he keeps on telling Shame off for just being there. He even tries to arrest Shame but Shame is just way too cool for that. As far as I am concerned, this movie can stay on the shelves.