While I’ve never been a huge fan of the Wayans brothers’ movies (director Keenan Ivory and stars/co-writers Shawn and Marlon craft the majority) like “White Chicks” or “Scary Movie,” I do appreciate the fact they are willing to take political incorrectness to the extreme. Comedies should push boundaries and break barriers, that is what we ask them to do and it is a joy to usually revel in the glories of the best of them when they’re able to accomplish just that.

There is a line, however, between pushing boundaries á la Mel Brooks with “Blazing Saddles” and reveling in bad taste just for the sake of doing so like in “Scary Movie 2.” The Wayans tend not to know when to quit (or to know the difference), their films such superficially simplistic idiot boxes devoid of little things like character development or plot progression the only thing left for them to revel in is the toilet.

For me, “Little Man” doesn’t only cross that narrow line it obliterates it. While it should be admitted upfront I laughed far more often, and far more hysterically, than I remotely expected to (and based on the horrifically awful trailer who can blame me), the Wayans go decidedly too far, at one point offering up a late night rape scene for comedic ogling. The simple fact is that rape, no matter what the context, is not funny, and the fact this movie so blithely plays the moment off as another politically incorrect stepping stone isn’t just wrong it’s downright offensive.

Make no bones about it, the fact this movie was better than I had anticipated does not excuse the filmmakers in any way whatsoever as far as I am concerned. Yes, I laughed, this thinly constructed tale of a 2’6” diamond thief named Calvin (Marlon Wayans) going undercover as a baby to recover a diamond he hid in the purse of corporate climber Vanessa (Kerry Washington) far funnier than it has any right to be. Most of those laughs come during a gut-busting stretch where the little guy gets to know (and torments) her fiancé Darryl (Shawn Wayans), a laid back everyman who can’t wait to be a dad. For a good ten minutes or so the film achieves a blissful gut-busting groove that had me rolling in the aisle, the laughs hitting me so hard I literally had tears in my eyes.

The thing is, I don’t care that I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. It doesn’t matter this movie is better written and more thoroughly constructed than any picture the Wayans have done before. This one scene (and it’s after-credits coda) so offended me, left such a bad taste in my mouth, that any chance this film would have had to have at least received even a passing recommendation from me went out the window so fast you’d think I was shooing out a bumble bee because I was allergic to the sting.

I don’t know. The audience sure seemed to love it far more than I did, ready to accept the fact the brothers were playing off rape as something inconsequential more than I was ever ready to. What that says about me, I’m not in the mood to guess. What it says about them, however, makes me shudder all the way to my core. “Little Man” isn’t a disaster, but it is a disgrace and in my book that’s something far, far worse.