Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Time Saver They had the funds, they had the means, they had some good acting crew, they even had a fine reputation of the previous Shaft, but somehow they managed to make only half a movie - the second half is barely watchable.The first half goes quite smoothly, introducing us with the main characters and the main plot. Samuel L. Jackson is a great choice for the role of Shaft, but even his flawless appearance couldn't make this movie special, or even above average.This new Shaft lacks cunning and authority, making him nothing more than a regular cop who is trying to right the wrongs. And that would be just fine if the whole bunch on nonsensical and absurd things didn't occur in the second part of the movie. As if all the following events were just randomly piled upon each other, still connected with the story, but lacking common sense. All of that just made me indifferent about how the movie will end.Still, it's watchable, but don't expect anything special and overly exciting.

grantss Pretty good. Good action and reasonable plot. The vigilantism is not overdone, unlike some movies with similar plots. Samuel L Jackson is great in the lead role. However, almost stealing the show Jeffrey Wright and Christian Bale, who play the bad guys. Both are excellent in their roles - Wright is particularly funny.Good support from Busta Rhymes, Vanessa Williams, Toni Collette and Dan Hedaya. The original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, makes a cameo appearance.Worth watching.

C. Sean Currie (hypestyle) "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.

Johan Dondokambey The story builds it's crime case well, keeping the mystery element existing while revealing new details and small surprises along the way. Yet it kind of throws back at how the focus character seems to be so resourceful and calm at what he's doing. I think the movie should have a more solid backgrounder on how he can do these things. The action side is not that good at all, having too much close up shots and cuts from shot to shot just don't seem to add to the suspense. The acting side also doesn't really offer something. Samuel L. Jackson's acting is surprisingly slightly a bit his own standard here, grinning too much at the wrong times. Christian Bale's upper lip definitely wrecks up his expressions all the entire time. Vanessa Williams can add a color to the story but that's just it.