AllMovie

Hot off the success of In Living Color, Mo' Money had the potential to be a star-making turn for Damon Wayans. Unfortunately, the film ended up being the first of many comedies to suggest that Wayans has a severe case of Eddie Murphy's disease -- too concerned with looking cool onscreen to simply give audiences what they want: comedy. Wayans simply shouldn't have been given so much control as star, writer, director and producer. The comedic saving grace here is younger brother Marlon Wayans who, in his big-screen debut, shows an ability to give himself to a role, a skill that will be more and more evident throughout his career. In the scenes they share together, while Damon appears to simply be going through the motions as he waits to again share screen time with the stunning Stacey Dash, Marlon puts everything he has into his performance, even sometimes bringing something funny out of his big brother. The script fails in the respect that, a third of the way through, the comedy ends, the tone turns dark, and the story becomes a muddled, clichéd, and wholly unsatisfying thriller. John Diehl plays the smarmy and menacing bad guy more than adequately, but viewers naturally expecting a comedy will be too disappointed by the film to notice.