Shaft

Now many of you will remember the 1971 original. Very good film. Slow by today’s standards, yes, but still fun enough to be pretty damn cool. It’s started a almost look a little cheesy in this day and age, what with all of the 70s stereotypes (the gay bartender, the insatiable lust of a private dick, the constant bickering between the NYPD and said private dick, the rather backwards racism of said NYPD), but it’s just a little hard to see the impact that this movie had on 1970s black culture. First off, it started a whole new genre of film: blaxpoitation. Without this people like Richard Roundtree, Isaac Hayes, Pam Grier and Dan ‘The Dragon’ Wilson never would have had any kind of careers. And that would have been a crime. Second, John Shaft was pretty much the first black hero to hit the screen. This, of course, took the community by storm and started every young black man wearing leather trench coats and trying to be bad muthas. And it was the first film to ever show a white woman joining a black man in the shower! Not bad for one little low budget feature by a failing major studio (MGM).

And now, nearly 30 years, two sequels and a tv series later, that same studio is at it again. Of course there’s no way that this version could have near the impact of the first one, but they chose just the right actor for it. And they kept it from being a needless remake and made it more of a passing of the torch.

This time John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) is an NYPD cop who happens upon a race crime and is able to solve it with the help of the one witness, Diane (Toni Collette from The Sixth Sense), but isn’t able to keep the suspect, Walter Williams (Christian Bale from Empire Of The Sun and American Psycho), in jail since he broke the bastard’s nose. After bail is set Walter skips out on it and isn’t heard from again for two years. Neither is Diane She’s too scared to testify because this guy’s dad is a heavy hitter in town.

At the two year point Walter comes back, Shaft catches him and he gets away with a one million dollar bail to the chagrin of both Shaft and a woman who I can only guess is the victim’s mother. (They never actually say.) This, of course, is where Shaft loses faith in the system and quits by throwing his badge at the judge. But before bail is set he has to spend some time in jail where he meets Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright from Basquiat), a local Puerto Rican drug pusher and they form a sort of edgy bond.

After the bail is paid Walter hires Peoples to kill Diane because he knows Shaft will be after her, and that’s where the story really starts.

All this and Richard Roundtree reprising his original role as the new Shaft’s uncle. How awesome is that?

After all the trouble I heard about the production I’m glad that the end product was as good as it was. Director John Singleton (Boyz N The Hood) and Sam had one idea for the film and producer Scott Rudin and writer Richard Price (Clockers and Sea Of Love) had another. There were scenes that Mr. Jackson wasn’t too happy about because they played the race card a little too much, not to mention the fact that “the black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks” doesn’t get any! Oh, there’s a sex scene kind of blurily played out during the opening credits, but it looks closer to a James Bond intro segment than a real sex scene. Richard, however, does go home with two beautiful young women, so that kind of makes up for it. And Sam said that the first order of business for any sequels will be to bring back the sex. But in the more or less PC 90s it’s hard to have a hero who has sex with more than one woman in each movie unless he’s Bond. That’s too bad.

And Richard and Christian weren’t too happy that some of their scenes were cut after Jeffrey took over his role so well. There was originally a scene with Walter and Shaft in a fist fight, but that’s gone. Maybe on the DVD.

But the movie is worthy of the name in both content and acting. The story is right along with the whole race relations aspect of the original. There’s plenty of one liners to keep the racists among the New Yorkers at bay. One thing that was a little disturbing was Shaft’s first captain. He seems to really not like John, but it’s more of a “your crazy antics” type thing than anything else. He’s happy to throw him out of the precinct when he breaks Walter’s nose. Two years later he meets up with John again and says something along the lines of “One thing I love about my retirement community. It’s, oh, how shall I put this…restricted.” That’s a rather racist comment from a guy who didn’t seem to care about race before. And why did Carmen (Vanessa Williams playing Shaft’s Hispanic partner!) say “Step off, Peoples!” Didn’t we stop saying that about 10 years ago?

Two more real quick bugs: Shaft finds Diane very quickly. Everyone has been looking for her for two years, but he finds her within a couple of days. Huh?!?! And that last car chase sequence proves that Singleton isn’t a car director. Lots of blurry shots of cars outside of other cars. I didn’t always know what was going on. And there was a shot cut from the first chase scene between Shaft and Diane where the car is about to hit Shaft. There’s a shot in the preview that shows it from above, but it’s not in the movie, so you almost have to guess the danger that he’s really in.

All of this is kind of nit-picky, though. The movie is really awesome. Lots of action, cool dialogue and Samuel L. Jackson in a role that he was born to play. Not to mention Busta Rhymes in a role he was born to play: the wisecracking pimp daddy. And Christian seems to be really good at these kinds of psycho roles. He’d better get some good guy roles soon or else everyone’s going to think he’s actually a first-class bastard. I can’t wait for Shaft In Jamaica (which is Jackson’s preferred location for the next one). We can only hope that this one does well enough, but I don’t think we’ll have a problem with that. After all, we can’t turn our back on our brother man, can we?

By the way, Isaac’s new version of his biggest hit is just a good as his original. Not very different, just a little longer and still amazing. Gotta love Ike, man.

And watch for Gordon Parks (director of the original) in the bar.