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1. bronco

   Pretty good. But still nothing special

2. lats43

   Who’s The Man?
   Undoubtedly one of the coolest movies of the year, Shaft merely gets by on the sleek image of a brooding Samuel L. Jackson, walking the streets of the New York, with the shiny shaved head and intimidating leather jacket, and taking down the bad guys. John Shaft was a 70s "blaxploitation" icon who is re-created in this 2000 take on the baddest mutha to ever hit the big screen. With John Singleton at the helm, I was expecting a cool, but smarter, look at Shaft, but what Singleton brings to the table is rather disappointing.
   Shaft follows the renegade actions of John Shaft (nephew of the original John Shaft, played by Richard Roundtree) as he tries to bust the cocky and rich Walter Wade (Christian Bale) and his association with drug lord Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright). The film slowly builds up to a huge conspiracy, but is a conspiracy we know from the get-go. Instead of leading us along with Shaft, Singleton and writer Richard Price always keep the audience a few steps ahead of Shaft. So instead of an cool crime/action flick, we only get a cool action flick. And even the action is not much to write home about.

   The film is not a moral crime drama — it really is just a one man versus the system renegade story. And yet Samuel L. Jackson, who solidifies his status as the epitome of cool movie stars in this film, seems to give weight to a character that used to only be seen as the creator of blaxploitation. Shaft still busts head, shoots up the criminals and gets some booty, but he adds to Shaft’s credibility. Samuel L. Jackson does not ruin the legend of the character; if anything, he makes it stronger.

   On paper, the supporting cast is terrific. Vanessa L. Williams, Christian Bale, Jeffrey Wright, Toni Collette, Busta Rhymes, Richard Roundtree and Dan Hedaya. Yet among all of these wonderful people, writer Price can only scrounge up one role worthy of their performances. Wright, playing the drug lord Hernandez, takes a character that could have easily fell into the stereotypical Dominican drug lord category. Wright’s role as People, which was originally written as a minor supporting role, takes Shaft to a whole new level. While the movie would have been cool no matter who was opposing John Shaft, the strong opposition embodied in Wright only makes the film better.

   Christian Bale, fresh off of his role in the controversial American Psycho, plays Wade, the arrogant rich kind trying to get off of the hook for murder. He is trying to silence Diane (Toni Collette), a waitress who was the only witness to the murder Wade committed. Bale’s role was the originall written to be that of Shaft’s main opposition, but the emergence of Wright changed that. While Bale gives a solid performance, it becomes very obvious that his role could have been deeper. While this would normally be something to raise heck over, there’s not too much to dispute after you watch Wright’s amazing job.

   The rest of the cast is, well, just there. Vanessa L. Williams doesn’t do much as Officer Carmen. In writing this review, I cannot remember anything she did that was of the slightest importance. I was expecting a lot from Toni Collette, but she is merely a face that will make you think, "Oooh, there’s the mom from The Sixth Sense. Richard Roundtree plays his old character in the film, but pops way too often. He should have had a brief cameo, but Singleton insists on bringing him into scenes where there is no need for him. This quickly kills any nostalgia for old Shaft fans. Busta Rhymes plays Rasaan, Shaft’s "sidekick," and he provides some much-need humor that is absent from the whole cast, aside from Jackson and Wright. Even Dan Hedaya, playing one of the corrupt cops, has his dry sense of wit put to waste. The casting was terrific had Price and Singleton allowed the roles to expand.

   Shaft should have been the coolest action flick of the summer, but it loses that title to M:I-2, hands down. Singleton does a poor job with most of the action scenes, and in particular, the climactic car chase. Instead of using an array of wide shots to show the chase and gun play, Singleton utterly confused me with many close-up shots of yelling, shooting and driving. It seems like Singleton couldn’t shoot a scene like this on the streets of New York, so he made a quick fix by using close-ups. This turns what could have been a great scene into something very tedious.

   While Shaft is the coolest film you may see this year, there is definite need for improvement. Jackson and Wright shine in their respective roles, but its hard to say that for the rest of the cast. Poor supporting roles and poor action sequences do the unspeakable: they bring down John Shaft.

3. dilger

   Shaft dissapointed me even though i wasn’t expecting it to be very good!
   In possibly one of Samuel L. Jackson’s worst movies, Shaft seems like a long episode of the show either than a TV movie adaption (which i HATE in TV feature films!) another example of this is "X-Files: Fight The Future"

   Don’t get me wrong it had some good and entertaining action, but the rest was just corny and……done.

   The story-line was pretty good and the acting was, like most Samuel L. Jackson movies (the same)

   If you liked the TV shoe than see it you’ll probably like it.

4. les

   Cool flick! A little more violent than the original, but excellent anyway.

5. bravo6

   SHAFT delivers
   Back in 1971, "Shaft" was a revolutionary film - it introduced an African-American hero who bed countless women a la James Bond and could be as mean and relentless as most other private detectives, such as Philip Marlowe. Not just that, the film also showed an African-American who preened and walked the streets as if he owned them. He meant business and held no prisoners - a true fighting machine. The other significance of "Shaft" is that it launched the blaxploitation genre with popular hits such as "Superfly" and "Foxy Brown." Though the genre eventually died out, it resurged somewhat with Tarantino’s take "Jackie Brown" in 1997 and now the Samuel L. Jackson revisionist take by director John Singleton. With Jackson in the title role and a super cool, sleek style, this new "Shaft" delivers.

   Jackson is Shaft, though he does not replacing the original actor, Richard Roundtree. Instead, he plays his nephew and Roundtree is back reprising his famous role, now a weary uncle who still has his way with women. This new Shaft is also not a private detective but a New York City cop (watch out Guiliani). At the start of the film, he is investigating a racist yuppie, Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale, in his "American Psycho" mode), who killed an African-American man (Meki Phifer) in cold blood. Wade gets away scot-free and is deported to Switzerland. Meanwhile, Shaft, sensing a gross injustice, quits the police force. He does so in an unbelievably funny scene where he tosses his badge across a courtroom as if it was a Chinese star. There are various comic-book moments like this, especially when a runaway drug dealer breaks through one building window and lands safely on the other side by breaking through another building window. Jackson’s reaction makes the scene priceless.

   Several years later, Shaft is still pursuing Wade and finds a way of trapping him. Apparently, Wade has employed a Dominican coke dealer, Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright), to kill a scared bartender (Toni Collete), the sole witness who can pinpoint Wade to the murder. The price is $40,000 for the hit, but of course Shaft tries to obtain the cash and succeeds leading to a series of double-crosses, car chases and lots of violence. In other words, what else do you expect from an action picture, right? True, but it is rare to see a fun, exciting, truly spirited action picture like this one, and Jackson makes it more so with his titanic presence and his unduly sarcasm.

   Director John Singleton stages the car chase scenes with such panache that it almost supersedes the similar velocity of car stunts in "Ronin." They somehow feel new again, and the reason is in the character development and the less-is-more policy. Most action pictures overdose on action paranoia (see "Lethal Weapon 4") but this Shaft proves to be a strong, durable hero with more than enough reason for payback - he is no angry cartoon like Mel Gibson’s Riggs. Shaft shows no fear and little mercy, especially when roughing up a couple of teen gang members or using Bale as a punching bag. "Oh, you are firing me, for that?", as he knocks Bale out yet again.

   The villains are also very effective - the golden rule in any action flick is that the villains must be threatening and scary. "Mission: Impossible 2" is a bad example of providing a villain that would not even scare Barney the Dinosaur. In "Shaft", we have two villains, both a major match for the hero. Bale as the mean, racist, impulsive Wade, and the near-stereotypical yet vibrant turn by Jeffrey Wright (yes, the same guy from "Basquiat") as the smooth Peoples who wants to use Wade’s clientele to up the ante on his drug sales. There is one tense, frighteningly real scene where Peoples lets his emotional guard down when he finds his brother dead - he literally stabs himself in protest and sheer anger. Powerful stuff that you rarely see in a movie of this type.

   "Shaft" is not a great movie simply because the plot is too mediocre to inspire much excitement (corrupt cops, drug couriers, etc.) but its style is several notches above the original classic. One other minor quibble is that I would loved to have seen more of Collette, who plays a largely underdeveloped character. Still, I am no big fan of the original "Shaft" but this new film has the spark and vivid persona of Samuel L. Jackson to make up for everything else. He is the man, and I can dig it.

6. awold

   Rent it to skim to Jeffrey Wright’s scenes
   Shaft is supposed to be cool, menacing, a charismatic cop in control of his beat, but in this movie he’s just a thug with a nasty temper and a quick gun. Neither he nor his redneck police chief ever heard of fingerprints.
   His body count is impressive, 25 or so, (but no record: my daughter and I thought we saw Clint Eastwood personally take out 42 bad guys in one movie years ago). The movie is full of car chases, explosions and other adrenalin pumps — but that footage could have been spliced in from any similar flick; what makes it unique is the presense of Jeffrey Wright as the fully 3-dimensional Latino ganglord whose riveting Oscar-nomination quality performance completely steals the show. Don’t waste your time sitting bored in a theatre waiting for him to come on screen — rent it later so you can fast forward through the silly stuff in between.

7. orima

   Title should be "Sh*t" It’s a major disappointment
   Instead of wasting your time and money on this 3d rate piece of garbage go to your video store and rent the Original "Shaft".

8. europe

   Samuel L. Jackson is cool and the rest of the actors are not "bad" either.
   Samuel L. Jackson continues to prove his versatility and talent. He is not recreating the role made famous by Richard Roundtree. He has made the character of Shaft his own. Having Richard appear in the film was inspirational, as it adds definition to Sam’s role as a namesake of the original, not an imitation. The movie is full of action, drama and laughs. Shaft stands out as great entertainment for the mature (18 and over) audience. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it. The audience clapped at the end; something you don’t get in movies these days.

9. tek

   Pretty good..
   Having never seen the original Shaft(s) or read the novel, this was all new to me. Also, I don’t know how true it was to the original.

   But, Samuel L. definitely plays a cool dude. He might even be cooler than Dirty Harry.

   It boils down to an almost typical cops and robbers movie with a few pretty good characters. The Latino "Peoples" was great!

   The "race card" is definitely played in this flick (hugely) - so if that’s something that you’re not into - skip it.

   Enjoy!