Way back in 1988, budding comedic talent Keenen Ivory Wayans wrote, directed, and starred in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, a silly and, at times, brutal parody of 1970s blaxploitation cinema. He followed that success by creating the groundbreaking sketch comedy show In Living Color. Wayans, and his extended family, became a comedy dynasty that still produces works to this day. But Wayans, as many creative people are wont to do, wished to expand his horizons. He wanted to do more than just comedy. He wanted to be an action star.
That desire led to A Low Down Dirty Shame, also written, directed, and starring Wayans, in which he plays a gritty private eye. The film wasn’t well received, but it did decent numbers, returning three times its modest budget at the box office. It was his next project that was his moon shot, with an increased budget, greater scope, and a main character fit for the likes of every action star from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Michael Dudikoff.
Most Wanted, from 1997, features Wayans writing, starring, and with an executive producer credit, while directing duties were handled by David Hogan, whose vast majority of directing work was in music videos.
Wayans plays James Dunn, a Marine sniper sentenced to death for the murder of his commanding officer. That’s bunk, as shown in the opening scene. Five years later Dunn is being transported to a different prison when his bus is blown up by a roadside bomb. Dunn awakens still captive, but now with an offer from the mysterious Lt. Colonel Casey (Jon Voight). Join Casey’s elite CIA strike team, and stay off of death row. Or, go back and face execution. It’s an easy choice.
The first mission for Dunn is to assassinate big pharma CEO Donald Bickhart (Robert Culp). Bickhart will be attending the dedication of a new hospital wing he financed, along with the First Lady of the United States (Donna Cherry). When Dunn sets up on a nearby rooftop for his shot, 
another sniper kills the First Lady. Dunn flees the scene, escapes to a nearby safehouse, and is then betrayed. He has been set up as the fall guy for the death of the First Lady. To make matters worse, the person in charge of capturing Dunn is none other than Lt. Col. Casey, revealed in reality to actually be Lt. General Woodward, a major player in Washington.
All looks hopeless for Dunn, but there is one piece of evidence that can clear him. Dr. Victoria Constantini (Jill Hennessy) was recording the dedication ceremony on her camcorder, and happened to catch the real shooter on tape. It’s now Dunn and Constantini against the US military, as they try to get the tape to someone who can clear Dunn.
This is all pretty boilerplate stuff for an action flick. As such, it doesn’t stand up under close scrutiny. The good news is, that doesn’t matter. Wayans, Hogan, and company had 99 minutes of screen time in which to fit a conspiracy, and that conspiracy had to take a back seat to the action. The mantra seemed to be to keep it simple, don’t dwell on the details, and move on to the next set piece. That’s what this flick does.
The set pieces themselves have a grandiosity that I wasn’t expecting for a $25 million budget. A few years earlier James Cameron made the most expensive movie ever until that time in Terminator 2, and that flick featured only one helicopter. Most Wanted has about half a dozen, including around fifty cop cars, a hundred background vehicles, a fire truck, and enough extras playing cops to deplete the entire stock of Los Angeles area costume suppliers. Whole sections of downtown LA were closed off, during the daytime, for shooting. It’s actually impressive.
That’s it for any praise I have for this movie. It’s a competent action flick, sure, and it’s packed front to back with talent and recognizable That Guys, including many actors I haven’t bothered mentioning here, but that’s not why I watched it. I watched it for the less pristine aspects of moviemaking. I was expecting something bad, but instead I found a movie that enters the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index because of its tone more than its competence. Cinema is awash in action flicks of this quality, so I can’t pretend there is anything of great value in Most Wanted. That makes it shitty by default. When the mediocrity of it all gets a viewer down, that’s when there will all of a sudden be an army of cops on screen, or Wayans, unable to resist himself, will drop in some of his awkward humor. My favorite instance of this is a scene where Dunn has barged into Constantini’s home at gunpoint, and when they are in the kitchen this exchange happens:
Dunn: Damn, that looks good. You know, I haven’t had a piece in five years.
Constantini glances about in nervous fashion.
Dunn: Gotta have a taste.
Constantini braces herself for Dunn’s unwanted advance.
Dunn reaches behind Constantini for leftover pizza that has been sitting on the counter since before her last shift at the hospital.
Dunn: Hmm! God this is good. You’d be surprised what you miss when you’re locked up.
…And then Constantini’s house blows up. Most Wanted enters the Index at #208, displacing Fury of the Wolfman.