ReviewsMovieline - ...Mindless fun, a great supporting cast and a classic piece of wardrobe....Make a point of grabbing SHAFT off the video store shelf., USA Today - "...Rousing screen entertainment." -- 3 out of 4 stars, Entertainment Weekly - "...Flippantly aggressive, down and dirty....Jackson has attitude to burn..." -- Rating: B, Rolling Stone - ...SHAFT scores by lacing ba-da-boom action with social pertinence....[Wright] lets fly with a smashing, funny-scary tour de force..., New York Times - ...The always dependable and indomitable Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft...is unmistakably the star...
Additional InformationSamuel L. Jackson stars as detective John Shaft, a new-generation "black private dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks" in this stylish, action-packed update of the classic blaxploitation trilogy (SHAFT, SHAFT'S BIG SCORE!, and SHAFT IN AFRICA) from the early 1970s. Shaft's nemesis this time around is Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale), a cocky, blue-blooded white kid who commits a violent hate crime but still manages to skirt the system. When Wade forms an unholy alliance with powerful Dominican drug lord Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright) along with two dirty cops from Shaft's own precinct, Shaft turns in his badge to dispense justice on his own terms. Luckily for him, the original Shaft (Richard Roundtree, who is this Shaft's uncle) is around to help out, along with Vanessa Williams as a trustworthy cop, Toni Colette as an eyewitness to Wade's crime, and rapper Busta Rhymes as Shaft's man-on-the-street Rasaan. Director John Singleton (BOYZ N THE HOOD, HIGHER LEARNING) appears in a brief cameo, as does original SHAFT director Gordon Parks; the only creator missing is Ernest Tidyman, who wrote the novel that started it all. And SHAFT fans, take comfort--Isaac Hayes's remake of his classic theme is as funky as ever.