# Shaft (2000)

### reviewed by
Alex Ioshpe

DIRECTED BY: John Singleton WRITTEN BY: John Singleton CAST: Samuel L. Jackson, Christian Bale, Jeffrey Wright, Toni Collette

    MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and language
    Runtime: USA:99

    RATING:7/10

In the shadow of "The X-Men", this film promises the good old fashioned action with a more believable action hero.When it comes to a character who can hold the audience's attention by the sheer power of his presence, Shaft's your man. What's most important is that "Shaft" doesn't resort to imaginative special effects in order to create a super hero, but the true human elements that are necessary for such a task. For those of you who hasn't seen the original (and in my opinion a rather overrated) version that aired in 1971, here is the story:

Shaft is the NYPD detective in charge of the investigation of a race killing. One night outside of an upscale nightclub, a pampered yuppie named Walter Wade (Christian Bale) bludgeons a black man to death. There is one witness, a waitress named Diane (Toni Collette), and Wade warns her to keep her mouth shut... or else. Shaft makes the arrest, but the well-connected Wade is back on the streets in short order. It doesn't take long for him to jump bail and leave the country. Two years later, when he tries to sneak back in, Shaft is waiting. Meanwhile, the detective has been harassing a local drug dealer, Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright). Wade and Peoples meet in prison and thus begins an uneasy alliance to bring down Shaft.

What is true is that the theme from the original movie, which concerned racism and injustice in America, is virtually lost here, remaining nothing more than a good excuse to make a fun action film. Of course director John Singleton has included the obligatory elements of black exploitation (big cars, drugs, cigars, guns, sleazy nightclubs, gold chains, racism, babes, black leather coats, expensive booze, crooked white cops), but the problem is that all that is nothing more than props -- elements of the set decoration. Most importantly, however, "Shaft" delivers on it's promise of action, and plenty of it, and with the added benefit of having story enough to support it. Though the action sequences are not even nearly as great as in Mission: Impossible 2, they do provide a certain tension and suspense, though often descending to the kind of brainless, tiring action such as in "Gone in 60 Seconds". What is truly amazing is surprisingly the performances, especially by the three leads: Samuel Jackson, Christian Bale and Tony Colette. Unlike Wesley Snipes' ultra-cool vampire slayer in "Blade", Jackson has the physical as well as mental capabilities of being an action hero. Basically carrying the film on his shoulders, he presents enough of power, wit and strength to knock out both James Bond and Ethan Hunt out of their pedestals. However, the supporting cast is not far behind. Christian Bale puts on a spectacular performance, though his screen time is scarcely limited. Still not quite finished with Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho", he breathes life into a rather stereotypical and one-dimentional role. The third and probably one of the most amusing performances of the season, comes from Wright, who speaks with a Dominican accent so lushly indulgent it makes Al Pacino's Cuban cottonmouth in ''Scarface'' sound like a George Plimpton impersonation. What happens is that Wright takes a cliché -- the hotheaded Latin street prince -- and pushes it into operatic satire.

Shaft pushes our buttons at least as well as some of the Dirty Harry movies, which means it's something that has been next to unheard-of this year: reasonably rousing screen entertainment, but doesn't always succeed. Whatever the reason, the film is badly-focused and comes to a rather dissatisfying conclusion. Succeeding basically everywhere else, Singleton fails where others have not, by violating one of the key tenets of this sort of motion picture - that the hero should always confront (and subsequently defeat) the villain. This results in that "Shaft" fails to provide the violent catharsis that everyone in the audience is awaiting.

Though Entertainment Weekly called ''Shaft'' a "spicy fast food", I think that it is simply a series of slickly filmed action sequences dangling off a thin plot and held together by the force of Jackson's charisma.

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