# Shaft (2000)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

    PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
    "We Put the SIN in Cinema"

It's tough to anticipate what to expect from a film with this much baggage. Throughout the production of Shaft – a remake/sequel of the 1971 blaxploitation film of the same name – reports surfaced almost daily about ugly name-calling incidents between has-been director John Singleton (Rosewood), star and Gardenburger pitchman Samuel L. Jackson (Rules of Engagement) and cracker screenwriter Richard Price (Ransom).

The good news is that the theme song isn't messed up. My greatest fear was that on-his-fourteenth-minute-of-fame song-stealer Sean `No-Talent' Combs would be tapped to hip the thing up with samples from Steppenwolf and Kenny Rogers, in the way that frat-boy-date-rape rockers Limp Bizkit ruined the M:I-2 theme. The bad news is that the remake wasn't campy in the slightest, which is how I would have approached the film - you know, with really cheesy action sequences and bad guys with big, white top hats, furry white coats, glass canes and ... wait; I'm describing P. Diddy. Shaft plays like a conventional action flick, which to me was just disappointing.

The story involves a bar altercation where Walter Williams (Christian Bale, American Psycho), the racist son of a New York City bigwig, offs a young black man. The case, which is caught by Detective John Shaft (Jackson) hinges on the testimony of a waitress named Diane (Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense) that may have witnessed the murder, but she disappears. Williams uses his connections to get a bargain-rate bail, skips town and ends up in Switzerland.

The film flashes forward two years, where Shaft is still trying to hunt down Diane, but catches wind that Williams is coming back to the States. Throw in a drug dealer named Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright, Ride With the Devil), and you've got more story that an average action film can probably handle. You know this is the case when you realize that Diane has been on the run for two years yet hasn't even left the Bronx. When Shaft is kicking ass, the film is great, but when he's not, it really drags. The resulting effect is a choppy and uneven viewing experience.

On the plus side, ain't nobody in the world can say `motherfucker' like Sammy J. He's built a whole career around being able to deliver that one word really well, and he throws it around quite often here. I'd pay twenty bucks just to have him say it right in my face. Hell, it's cheaper than an all-day pass to Six Flags, and probably at least twice as scary as whatever their new ride is this year. Can Jackson/Shaft kick ass? Lord, yes, but he could have kicked a lot more. I would have liked more fisticuffs as opposed to the standard gunplay that ran rampant throughout the film.

Also worth mentioning are Collette's amazing Bronx accent (she's Australian) and the hysterically over-the-top and nearly unrecognizable performance from Wright, who may be one of the screen's best bad guys in some time. Bale nails his pretentious white prick role, but that seems to be what everyone thinks about him anyway. And big-mouth rapper Busta Rhymes does an admirable job playing Shaft's wisecracking sidekick. Also appearing in Shaft are Vanessa L. Williams (Light It Up), Dan Hedaya (The Hurricane), Lee Tergesen (Oz), Gloria Reuben (ER) and Richard Roundtree (Steel), the star of the original film, who plays Shaft's Uncle John.

1:42 - R for strong violence and language

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