A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	95:43
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Keenen Ivory Wayans
Studio Distributor	Caravan Pictures Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Keenen Ivory Wayans Charles Dutton Jada Pinkett Smith Salli Richardson Andrew Divoff Corwin Hawkins Gary Cervantes Gregory Sierra Kim Wayans Andrew Shaifer Christopher Spencer Devin DeVasquez John Capodice
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Tevin Campbell R. Kelly Marcus Miller

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Danish Spanish Dutch Norwegian Finnish Swedish English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    A Low Down Dirty Shame is a reasonably well made action film with a solid dose of humour. Keenan Ivory Wayans pulls double duty as the film's star and director. The Wayans brothers made a name for themselves in the late 1980s with the hit comedy series In Living Colour, which also launched the career of Jim Carey amongst others. As an actor Keenan has appeared in several action films including The Glimmer Man with Steven Seagal and Most Wanted with Jon Voight. His real success has come in the directing field with back-to-back smash hits in Scary Movie and its sequel. A Low Down Dirty Shame is an early directing effort that pays homage to the blaxploitation classic Shaft.

    Shame is an ex-police officer who quit the force in a cloud of controversy. Jaded by his experience in the police he now runs an almost bankrupt private investigation company where he only answers to himself and his secretary (Jada Pinkett), a soap opera junkie that harbours a secret crush on her boss. Agreeing to help an old colleague in the Drug Enforcement Agency, Shame finds himself caught up in the same drug smuggling operation that led to his resignation disgrace. Can he change the outcome a second time?

    As a film the narrative is lacking, and the characters are merely 2 dimensional caricatures that can be found in almost any B-grade action movie. However, what A Low Down Dirty Shame lacks in originality it tries to make up in humour, some well-staged shoot-outs and several brutal fight sequences. As a director Wayans knowingly uses clichés by the dozens, but infuses them with enough rough humour and self-knowing wit to compensate for this obvious shortcoming, and to some degree it works. The film is never boring and contains some quite funny situations. When released stateside in 1994 the film earned a respectable 30 million dollars so I'm surprised a sequel never eventuated.

    A Low Down Dirty Shame is a decent 90 minutes of low grade action fun that should please those action fans looking for a non-taxing adrenaline rush.

Video

    A Low Down Dirty Shame is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced for widescreen viewing.

    The picture has a reasonably sharp image with little to no aliasing or halo problems. The transfer has reasonably solid blacks with a decent amount of shadow detail. There were patches of grain here and there, but no low level noise nasties.

    Colours were natural with no notable image bleeding problems.

    The film contained the occasional speck of dirt or film artefact but nothing overly intrusive.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film contains two audio tracks in Dolby Digital 2.0; English and Spanish.

    Dialogue is always clear and never loses clarity during sound effects heavy sequences. There are no audio sync problems.

    The film's music is a hodge-podge of Hip Hop and Rap tunes with occasional symphonic accompaniment. It is not overly bombastic or intrusive.

    There is a moderate amount of surround channel usage that only becomes evident during action sequences with the occasional explosion or gun shot using the rear channels.

    The subwoofer adds the required reverberation.

    All DVD versions of this film are currently essentially the same.

    A Low Down Dirty Shame is a moderately enjoyable action film with solid performances and decent humour. The disc has a nice transfer for the low cost, but not an extra in sight.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall