Shaft (2000)

Perfect cast and a good story

Am I Missing Something?

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Have you seen it? No? There is likely a very good reason for that...it stinks.Like nearly ALL the endless remakes and reboots that have been plaguing movie goers for the past decade or so....all this is, is a heartless version of the original.It has no heart.It has no soul.It is a retelling of a film that we all love and cherish...and it adds nothing to the story. It improves nothing but the special effects--which held up very well over time--and in some cases belittles the fans of the original...particularly in the fact that they remade the movie at all, without adding anything clever to it.Like so many other remakes it is a hallow shell of the original.

"Shaft" (2000), starring Samuel L. Jackson, is a John Singleton-directed film and an update of the Ernest Tidyman literary character.This viewer was disappointed in the Singleton/Jackson film. Singleton is a valuable director and Jackson is deservedly a marquee actor, but this project wasn't especially enjoyable, especially based on the pedigree of the concept. The script just wasn't there. Maybe the paper script had more depth, but on-screen, there wasn't a compelling main villain in Christian Bale's bigoted trust-funder. Jeffrey Wright's Dominican drug dealer stole the show in comparison.Jackson's Shaft is robbed of the relative independence that his predecessor enjoyed in the previous Shaft films. Mainly, Jackson's Shaft starts off the film as a New York City police detective, who quits the force halfway through the film to be a vigilante after being frustrated with how the court systems deals with Bale's criminal blue-blood.Another aspect that can't be ignored here: The film has a literal throwaway non-dialogue credits scene where Shaft throws a candy bar at a woman he just slept with, and along with a provocative line said to a woman at a bar, that's pretty much it for the Bond-esque ladies' man quality that the first Shaft displayed.This was another reason that Jackson's casting doesn't work, because it kind of assumes up-front that this character is not going to be portrayed as any kind of sex symbol, compared to a Wesley Snipes or Will Smith (or whoever else might have been in the running circa 1999-2000.) Jackson's Shaft has a chaste relationship with a fellow detective played by Vanessa L. Williams, but that's it.About the only other part this viewer enjoyed was Richard Roundtree as the "real" Uncle Shaft showing up in key moments. (It is observed that because the age difference between Roundtree and Jackson isn't that dramatic, the character is "Uncle" Shaft rather that his dad.John Shaft's original screen adventures (the first, directed by Gordon Parks) were imbued with the evolving social politics of urban American in the early 1970s. In the first film, Shaft was caught in between the criminal underworld of NY (Bumpy's Harlem operation and the white Mafia), the police, and the activist militants of the neighborhood. Shaft would navigate dealing with all of those elements, but refused to be co-opted by any of them.This "Shaft" film is a competently shot, competently acted, by-the-books actioner, but it just doesn't have a satisfying narrative for repeat viewing. Stick with the originals.

NYC police detective John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) is confronted by a cocky racist Walter Wade, Jr. (Christian Bale) son of a rich and powerful real estate tycoon who is charged for a murder. He skips out on his bail. It's 2 years later. Walter Jr is back in town, and Shaft arrests him once again. However Walter gets bail once again. Now he's hunting down the waitress witness (Toni Collette). Shaft quits in frustration. Walter enlists the help of drug lord gangster Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright) to find the waitress.Samuel L Jackson as Shaft is exactly as everybody expects. Director John Singleton got that part right. He cast the perfect Shaft. However the story is a poor mess. There isn't any mystery or thrills. Christian Bale is ridiculously over the top evil but ultimately a weakling. He needs to be a super villain so that Shaft can oppose a worthy opponent. Then they have drug lord Peoples. If he's the super villain, then it should be him to start off the movie, not Christian Bale.I rather have a cleaner straight up fight against the drug lord, and forget about the racist white boy. As far as I'm concern, the dirtier and grittier and the more realistic, the better. If they truly need a white boy antagonist, let him be a drug dealing rich boy. The whole Christian Bale murderer storyline is a diversion from the truly fun parts.

Samuel L. Jackson is here in one of his best roles ever as the black no-nonsense NYC detective John Shaft who's mean, yet good-hearted and caring in his own strange and rough way; he's especially kind toward the scared bar waitress, played well by Toni Collette. He didn't mind being mean toward the Hispanic Peeples Hernandez, the part Jeffrey Wright played so convincingly. It was, to say the very least, extremely refreshing to see Vanessa Williams who portrayed Carmen Vasquez. Christian Bale, a very versatile actor, was the smart-aleck Walter Wade, Jr, for whom no sensible person could have any sympathy. Also, the unforgettable Richard Roundtree made a surprise, yet not-surprising, appearance as the "original" John Shaft, here John Shaft's uncle. Naturally, Isaac Hayes' musical contribution was a mind-sticker. And too, it is obvious that the director John Singleton made a great accomplishment. But while it was allegedly a serious drama, because of the filthy persiflage on the part of Jackson toward Wright and a few others, I was led to laugh, and did. They did for sure get carried away there. And yet, it was a story about a serious detective who hated injustice with a passion. Samuel L. Jackson, again, made you believe here that he was "the man who would risk his neck for fellow-man" for sure.