Release Date:
06/16/2000
This millennial Shaft opens on a crime scene: Cops swarm around a restaurant in the Flatiron district with lights flashing and onlookers gawking. Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) pushes his way through the crowd and gets the lowdown: Someones been murdered; no one saw anything. Shaft doesnt buy it, cause, ya know, hes Shaft. He walks through a room filled with police officers and detectives and immediately fingers the unknown witness, cause, again, hes Shaft. Got it? Anyway, Shaft uses his utter Shaftness to detect the reluctant witness because shesget thisgot blood smeared across her face. No cop in a three-mile radius could spot the blood smeared across her face. And, no, Mark Fuhrman was not involved.
Were not sure which is worse: The shit-for-brains script, the ham-fisted direction, or the gall of John Singletons attempt to use the hype machine to pass off this second-rate cop thriller as the second coming of John Shaft. This movie falls flat in every respect: From the lame jokes to the ridiculous plot twists, were amazed Richard Roundtree deigned to show his face in this debacle. Remember the opening of the original? Roundtree strutting around Manhattan to the funkified beat of Isaac Hayes score? At the time it was original and firmly rooted in the time period. Now Hayes score makes this too-serious-for-its-own-good movie feel like a bad episode of Starsky & Hutch. The script is actually insulting; the holes in the logic are bigger than the lapels of the original Shafts sportcoats. And Sam Jacksons quintessential badassness is wasted. Hes not nearly as smooth or as tough as he could have been because, once again, he is failed by a cheeseball script. This movie doesnt know whether it wants to be a camp tribute or a serious film in its own right. So it fails on both counts.
With some talented people in supporting roles, this movie flaunts its failed potential. Jeffrey Wright would have made a nasty villain if hed been allowed to rise above cheap laughs, Toni Colette has proven shes better than a simple damsel in distress, and the pure evil that Christian Bale honed in American Psycho appears only in brief glimpses here. Not to mention the crime of wasting Dan Hedaya, one of the funniest and most consistently engaging character actors around. You know its bad when the only real laugh comes from a split-second appearance by Lawrence Taylor (yes, that Lawrence Taylor). We left feeling, well, shafted.
Were not sure which is worse: The shit-for-brains script, the ham-fisted direction, or the gall of John Singletons attempt to use the hype machine to pass off this second-rate cop thriller as the second coming of John Shaft. This movie falls flat in every respect: From the lame jokes to the ridiculous plot twists, were amazed Richard Roundtree deigned to show his face in this debacle. Remember the opening of the original? Roundtree strutting around Manhattan to the funkified beat of Isaac Hayes score? At the time it was original and firmly rooted in the time period. Now Hayes score makes this too-serious-for-its-own-good movie feel like a bad episode of Starsky & Hutch. The script is actually insulting; the holes in the logic are bigger than the lapels of the original Shafts sportcoats. And Sam Jacksons quintessential badassness is wasted. Hes not nearly as smooth or as tough as he could have been because, once again, he is failed by a cheeseball script. This movie doesnt know whether it wants to be a camp tribute or a serious film in its own right. So it fails on both counts.
With some talented people in supporting roles, this movie flaunts its failed potential. Jeffrey Wright would have made a nasty villain if hed been allowed to rise above cheap laughs, Toni Colette has proven shes better than a simple damsel in distress, and the pure evil that Christian Bale honed in American Psycho appears only in brief glimpses here. Not to mention the crime of wasting Dan Hedaya, one of the funniest and most consistently engaging character actors around. You know its bad when the only real laugh comes from a split-second appearance by Lawrence Taylor (yes, that Lawrence Taylor). We left feeling, well, shafted.