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Can You Dig It?

By Spencer Ross

The newest version of Shaft is now out in theaters with Samuel L. Jackson portraying the nephew of the famous private eye of the 70s. I regret to say that I've never seen the original Shaft films so unfortunately I can't compare this version to the earlier movies. However, I did enjoy this movie enough to give it three stars out of five. John Singleton, director of such movies as Boyz in the Hood did a decent job with the screenplay of this movie, providing action at almost every corner and humor whenever possible. This could be the resurgence of blaxploitation films in the 00s. I went on opening weekend at an 11:45pm showing of the movie and I think we were only a few white kids in a theater that was a predomininatly black audience however, I found it to be an entertaining movie nonetheless.

The movie opens with Samuel L. Jackson's detective John Shaft taking the case of a murder outside a city restaurant. However, when Shaft finds out that the murder may have been race motivated, he punches out the suspect, Walter Wade (Christian Bale). I could definitely see how this would spark a feeling of pride in certain audience members and I think there was a part of me that was happy to see Shaft knock Wade out as well. A key witness in the case, Diane Palmieri (played by The Sixth Sense's Toni Colette) is quickly introduced but she goes into hiding throughout the movie. While looking through Wade's wallet, he sees her drivers license and takes it with him as his trump card against Wade. When Wade's bail is set so low that he is able to escape to Switzerland, Shaft becomes determined to catch Wade on his own accord. He becomes fed up with the racism among the force and thus, he quits the NYPD to pursue Wade by his own rules. With a little help from his uncle, John Shaft the original (played by the original, Richard Roundtree) and the laid back rasta, Rasaam (Busta Rhymes), Shaft is determined to find Palmieri so that she will testify against Wade.

Things aren't so easy though, and Wade becomes entangled with a funny Hispanic drug dealer named Peoples Hernandez (Jeffery Wright), who wants Wade to be a front for his drug operation. He wants to use Wade to get upscale, downtown customers, while Wade wants Peoples to locate Palmieri and kill her before she testifies. Also involved are two other cops on the force (Dan Hedaya and Ruben Santiago-Hudson) who are willing to make some quick cash from Peoples in exchange for locating Palmieri. If it sounds confusing, it's made clearer in the movie. Shaft, using his street humor and street knowledge, plays everybody for fools and is not only successful in protecting Palmieri, but ends up destroying Peoples and Peoples' people. Everybody ends up turning on everybody while Shaft sits back and laughs.

I thought this was a pretty funny movie and I thought Samuel L. Jackson did a great job portraying the next generation of Shaft. I didn't really know what this movie was going to be about, since it wasn't the original movie. I wasn't sure how they were going to account for the fact that this was the year 2000, unlike the original 1971 movie. However, they did a good job covering themselves and bringing Shaft into the next millenium. Once again, Issac Hayes rounds out the movie with an excellent, funkadelic score and the ever popular "Theme From Shaft," which was redone for this movie. (I didn't quite catch what of it was redone, but I enjoy it just the same and I think I was the only white person in the theater who was singing along with it.) There are some interesting camera shots as well and the cuts between scenes are done a little interestingly. The violence was a little excessive though with multiple shootings, stabbings, people thrown out of windows, and even one guy getting hit by a car and then walking away. I can't say the plot of the movie was so original and it didn't always leave me hanging on the edge of my seat, however, if you take the movie as a whole, it was well done but sets itself up for future installments of "Shaft: the next generation" movies. Hopefully if that happens, Samuel L. Jackson will portray Shaft again, because I could think of no better actor out there now that could do the job as well as I think he did in this movie. Can you dig it?

Rated R, 100 minutes, with a lot of violence, a lot of obscenities, some sexual innuendo

6/18/00