Shaft *** (2000, Samuel L Jackson, Christian Bale, Toni Collette, Richard Roundtree, Jeffrey Wright, Vanessa L Williams, Dan Hedaya, Busta Rhymes) – Classic Movie Review 4585

Samuel L Jackson proves that Shaft is still the man in this strong but worrying and not very likeable updated version of the classic Seventies thriller, Shaft (1971).

Co-writer/ director John Singleton’s 2000 action movie sees Jackson ideally cast as the maverick streetwise cop John Shaft, nephew of the private detective Uncle John Shaft (original star Richard Roundtree in a cameo here) of the Seventies original, chasing a dangerous white yuppie racist criminal Walter Wade Jr (Christian Bale), who kills a black student.

Jackson’s maverick cop is more Dirty Harry than Shaft, as he sets out, by foul means rather than fair, to tackle two of New York’s prime pieces of scum: Bale’s racist killer and Jeffrey Wright’s Dominican drug lord, Peoples Hernandez. All the baddies – yes, there are more! – are carefully signalled in a script that packs power and realistic action but lacks originality and subtlety.

And this portrait of contemporary urban America is scary. With violence, murder, treachery, four-letter words and dodgy characters everywhere, where’s the film’s moral centre? Bale is effective in a variant of his American Psycho role and Jackson is very cool and classy, out and out the best thing about it, apart from the credits sequence with the original Isaac Hayes theme and a fine Seventies retro score by David Arnold.

But the pretty reprehensible script has some iffy ideas and a lot of 18 certificate violence, which spoil the film’s entertainment value.

Also in the cast are Toni Collette, Vanessa L Williams, Busta Rhymes, Dan Hedeya, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Josef Sommer, Lynne Thigpen, Philip Bosco, Pat Hingle, Lee Tergesen, Daniel von Bargen, Gano Grills, Mekhi Phifer, Zach Grenier, Catherine Kellner, Sixto Ramos, Freddie Ricks and Ron Castellano.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4585

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