Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 31

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1994DETROIT FREE PRESS 3D 'Low Down Dirty Shame9 takes too many steps backwards 1 Low Down Dirty Shame Rated violence, profanity, nudity, adult situations. 2 "TWO THUMBS UP!" "SISKEL lc EBERT" "This is the new holiday classic that America has been waiting for." Michael Medved, SNEAK PREVIEWS "A wonderful Christmas present. 'Miracle on 34th Street' made me a believer." -Pia Lindnrom. WNBCTV MIRACLE 3: Worthy effort 1: A bomb 4: Outstanding 2: So-so without inflection or timing and directs by lobbing a joke at the close of every scene as if this were one long TV sketch. It's OK that he's not Spike Lee and doesn't want to be, but it's also hard to swallow that this is the same man who made 1988's "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka." Then, it seemed to be a biting critique of 70s "blaxploitation" flicks.

Maybe that was the wrong interpretation. Maybe Wayans did it just for laughs. His characters may be funny sometimes, but they're still barely more than pencil sketches. His incidental gay characters are outdated stereotypes that easily set back any progress gays have made in cinema by about 10 years, and his Latino thugs are cardboard evil, drug-dealing Mexicans with South American accents. Wayans has been paid.

But as someone who knows all about the constrictions of pigeonholing, he should be ashamed. The Free Press talks with Keenen Ivory Wayans and Jada Pinkett on Page IF. By Anderson Jones Free Press Staff Writer Sure, only a cynic would notice, but near the end of "Low Down Dirty Shame" one of the characters says, "This isn't about selling out, it's about getting paid." That line almost betrays its author. would be Keenen Ivory Wayans, who writes, directs and stars as private eye Andre Shame. For less cynical fans of the urban adventure genre, the balance of the movie has more than a handful of crafty actiqn sequences that Wayans overstuffs with noisy, this-is-an-action-film effects: rapid machine-gun fire, splashing water, and crashing glass.

Scenes withjust enough implausibility to make them almost fun. Shame's daring multi-story leap out a window and into the sunroof of. a waiting limo. And the finale, in which the hero single-handedly dispatches a SWAT team, amounts to "Die Hard in a Mall" with one particularly nifty stunt to commandeer a macjiine gun that would earn the Best Use of a Bungee Cord Oscar, should the Academy be so inclined. Wayans also should be warmly congratulated for casting Jada Pinkett as Peaches, who gets her 'own licks into that overblown ending as well.

With her irrepressible :EPiuiionii.i!Hpi! 1 tg ml(sl, homegirl sassiness, Peaches is at once exactly the type of Girl Friday a worn-out detective needs. And exactly the type he should fire at once. She's meddling, in love with the boss and spends most of her time in the office watching soap operas she's way too wrapped up in. A pint-sized spitfire, Pinkett works Peaches overtime. She rolls her eyes on cue, rocking and bobbing her head as if her shoulder blades were set with springs and ball bearings.

And Peaches proves herself as invaluable to Shame as Pinkett is to Wayans' action-comedy. Because the story line's as thin as dental floss it involves a missing $20 million in drug money, a femme fatale (Salli Richardson), and a crooked DEA officer (Charles S. Dutton of there's plenty of room for Pinkett and Wayans to show off their fantastic IMC 4BBY IMClTieRIOIWWST AMC BCL AR Keenen Ivory Wayans is the writer, director and star of "Low Down Dirty Shame." chemistry. The "In Living Color" impresario even gets outmaneuvered by the plucky 23-year-old, who practically upstages him in nearly every scene they share shrewdly finding laugh lines that less able comics would miss. Which may be a testament to Wayan's direction or maybe it isn't.

That's because he inexplicably swallows many of his own punch lines 1 :20 2, 4:30 5, 7 7:30 9:30 10 5:40 6:00 10:10 1:00 3:20 5:50 8:15 10 40 AVC edSTWMD 5 dMCSOUTHflLD CITY IMC MURCL 3:30 5:15 5:45 7:20 6:00 12:15 2:30 5:00 7:20 9:45 1-30 5:30 7:40 10:00 AMC WOnDRWnD SHOWCrtSe futm wis SHOWasefomwci-5 Go Detroit on CompuServe Call 1 -800-848-8 1 99 10:00 12:45 3:00 5:15 7:30 9:45 11:10 1:35 4:10 6 55 9 15 11:30 11:15 1:40 4 10 6 55 9:20 11:30 SHOWO)SsraujncHcn SHOWCflSCwesTwr STAIR CR4TIOT 11:10 1:35 4:10 6:55 9:15 11:30 11:50 2:15 4:45 7:15 9:35 11:10 1:35 4:10 6 55 9:15 1V30 sill i j-! it STdR WIHCHSTR STJR MYLOR UffTCD ARTISTS MIRL4HC 11:30 2:15 4:40 7:40 10:20 11:45 2:15 4:45 7:15 9:45 1210 130 415 5:10 I I IX 10 20 UffTCD ARTISTS 1 2 OJKS UrfTCD Tt5TS WCST RWCR unrrco wets MKCSIDC 12:05 2:30 5:00 7:25 9:50 12:05 2:40 5:05 7:35 10:05 12:15 2:45 5:15 7:40 10:10 slillfi (I liiLAiuous, Tiie Season's nr. jr VERY UEST COMEDY. It's non-Stop Fro!" turtjiram, KMSM H) "funnier and faster Than 'Twins'!" Patty Spitlcr, WISH-TV CBS A VERY SPECIAL I I fdj 1 1 i IaDDCD ATTRACTIOM! liSiyiMP IMimililillllWIlllllllllllMMIMMH III NOW PLAYING i yw inirnT TIM ALLEN yi 0 i II ill II Thomson, ABC -TV, Los Angeles iiniii I mmm' Mice MtKoy, W8TV TV Pol Collins, WOR TV. New Yorli "WOTPElt? US Jeffrey Lyons, SNEAK PREVIEWS ABC WORLD NEWS NOW Wm WSftt PICTURES Presents A TODAY! AMC BEL AIR 10 amc AMERICANA west amcSOOTHFIELD CITY AMC LAUREL PARK Santa Claus1 AMC SOUTHLAND amc STERLING CTR.10 BEACON EAST AMC WONDERLAND QUO VADIS BKNOVITOWN SHOWCASE DEARBORN SHOWCASED" NOW PLAYING STAR JOHN RAT 14 MILE SHOWCASE HEIGHTS SHOWCASEVVi'd STAR GRATIOT AT 15 MILE STAR ROCHESTER HILLS artists WEST RIVER NO HSSESOI) DISCOUNT COUPONS ACCEPTED CHECK DIRECTOR) FOR SMKS STAR LINCOLN PARK 8 NO PASSES 01 COUPONS ACCEPTED t3R0 UJaft QtSlieij litOrtd CHfCIOfRETOrFOIHOVSmS 5f.