Shaft

Highlights:

• Street scenes in New York.
• A strong African-American in the lead role, an intelligent, hardboiled, and masculine character.
• Shaft standing up to racism out of the mouths of others in the film.
• Moses Gunn as Bumpy Jonas, who turns in the best performance.

Lowlights:

• Really poor audio quality, tinny at times and with obvious dubbing at others.
• Script is not great; plot is simple and dialogue is often wooden.
• Pace is slow, especially towards an end which is a little mechanical.
• The much-loved theme song has lyrics that are so over-the-top it gets the film off on a cartoonish note ("Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft)")

Great idea, just not all that well made.

Blaxploitation at it's best. A simple story with a twist done right. That is Shaft. The concept of a black man as a cool ultra slick, lady lovin' private detective. For once in the world of cinema the black man was tops and unlike other genre entries this one clicked with people of both colors. They had created a solid character in John Shaft that the population took a shinning to. For once it wasn't something exploitative being sold to a one-sided market audience exclusively.

But look I'm getting sidetracked. Shaft isn't this huge epic struggle of the black man through the generations. It's a solid, satisfying picture that gets by on pure character. Shaft. The black private detective has endlessly been imitated, but never duplicated since. With much of the character's success having to be attributable to Richard Roundtree, a perfect fit for the material. He wasn't so much playing a character named John Shaft, but rather he was John Shaft. Perhaps to the detriment of his career, I still can't watch a movie with Richard Roundtree in it without thinking of Shaft. The plot is on auto pilot - you've seen it before - maybe even done better - but this movie has Shaft and that's all there is to say.

I can understand why modern viewers aren't too impressed with „Shaft". Compared to modern action movies there isn't really much action here and it isn't anything spectacular – no huge shootouts , kung fu fights , big explosions , car chases and so on. There is lot of dialogue and the pacing is rather slow.

You know what ? Those are the reasons why I really like "Shaft" . It feels like a REAL LIFE story . Not every movie has to be an over the top spectacle for simple minded audience. For me less is more . I can hardly care for action hero when he's doing impossible stuff like jumping over the missile with a truck. Here the danger feels real . There is no villain . A simple bad guy with a gun can end your life and you have to be very careful . Shaft uses his muscles only when necessary . He prefers to outsmart his enemy , because violence can lead you as far. When he's fighting for life , you FEEL that he's fighting for life.

The movie captures the gritty atmosphere of 70's New York City . In this world everybody is walking a thin line between law and law of street . I also like that Shaft is a detective and the investigation actually plays important part through whole movie . Not to mention that characters here feel like they could exist in real life.

Richard Roundtree is great as the charming bad ass Shaft who is one foot in the world of black people and the other foot in the world of white people. He easily dominates the whole movie with his tough , confident and wise cracking personality. Women , both black and white are attracted to him (We get to see naked women – something you can't see in action movies anymore). The other actors give him solid support. I liked Charles Cioffi as Vic Androzzi and Moses Gunn as Bumpy.

The movie is worth watching for the delightful dialogue. Believe me – there is more tension in a scene when Shaft talks to Bumpy than in many car chases. The movie is very dialogue heavy , yet it's a true pleasure to listen how characters talk with each other . Most of the dialogue is quite humorous . You should prepare pen and paper to note .

The action scenes are nicely photographed . There is a great title song by Isaac Hayes (it won Oscar) and during the movie you can hear few other nice songs. "Shaft " is mostly entertainment , but it was also an important movie for black people. It's one of those rare movies where the black guy is a hero . The situation now changed , but long time ago it was a breakthrough movie . "Shaft" also captures really good the tension between white and black people back in the 70's.

I give it 7/10.

This is not a great film, but it is one of the most important films in American history.

The film suffers primarily because Parks isn't sure whether he wants to direct a 'relevant' black crime drama - for which he doesn't really have the money - or a film of the genre that became infamous as "blaxploitation", which had at that time not yet achieved definition. In other words, Parks is breaking new ground, and he wasn't sure exactly what ground he is breaking. So the film tends to amble, and sometimes even stagger, as it tries to define a goal for itself.

Nonetheless, this is the first film where a strong black man in a truly heroic role - without the props of white liberal social blather, and without being borderline criminal - is portrayed without excuses or apologies. Shaft is truly a hero of his time, part Sam Spade (& no jokes here, please), part James Bond - and all man - intelligent, fast to act, direct and always true to himself - he's nobody's "boy".

Although these qualities are in the script, the communication of the message depends entirely on Richard Roundtree - one of the truly great action actors of Hollywood history - hey, I'm a white boy, and I still want to be this John Shaft! he's that cool. The marginalization of this savvy and witty actor, due to the racism of Hollywood, is a real crime.

Well, for now, never mind; his performance alone carries this film, and makes it a treasure; and no matter how badly Hollywood marginalizes black action cinema, Roundtree's performance will continue to stand tall, for many generations to come.

Gordon Parks' 'Shaft' may not have been the first blaxploitation movie but it was the most important and commercially successful of the initial batch, and it kicked open the door for other dynamic 1970s screen heroes like The Hammer, Coffy, Black Caesar, Foxy Brown and The Jones' (Black Belt and Cleopatra). In some ways it is one of the most conventional of the blaxploitation genre in the sense that all it really is is a black man (the charismatic Richard Roundtree) playing a part that up until then would have been played by a white one (Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, even Sean Connery). A super cool, hard as nails hero/anti-hero who is as handy with his fists as he is with the ladies. But of course, that is what made 'Shaft' so revolutionary and influential at the time. Personally my favourite blaxploitation movie is 'Superfly', released the following year and directed by Gordon Parks' son, but I can't deny that if you accept 'Shaft' for what it is, and not what it COULD be, it's difficult to fault, and still one of the coolest and most entertaining action thrillers of the 1970s, as good as 'The Getaway', 'Dirty Harry' or 'The French Connection' (the latter being also written incidentally by Ernest Tidyman who created the John Shaft character in a popular series of novels). The main reason 'Shaft' really works is because of the casting of virtual unknown Richard Roundtree, and the music score by soul legend Isaac Hayes. Roundtree probably had more potential than any black star of the period to cross over into major Hollywood stardom, but for some reason (typecasting, bad breaks) he faded away quickly, and ended up playing small character roles, usually cops, in cult favourites like Larry Cohen's 'Q' and William Lustig's 'Maniac Cop', and more recently bit parts in 'Se7en' and John Singleton's ill advised "remake" of 'Shaft' itself. Hayes' title theme is an utter classic, and one of the most recognisable and imitated pieces of music from the early 70s. Hayes had already released the brilliant 'Hot Buttered Soul' before this, but 'Shaft' made him a superstar, and even gave him a career as an action here himself for a while with 'Truck Turner'. I don't think overall Hayes' score for the movie is as consistently impressive as Curtis Mayfield's work on 'Superfly', but the main theme is still a sensational piece of music. Roundtree is backed up with a strong supporting cast, including Moses Gunn ('Rollerball') as Bumpy, a great baddie, Charles Cioffi ('Klute') as Androzzi, the cop who is frequently exasperated with Shaft's behaviour, and Muhammad Ali associate Drew Bundini Brown as Willy, a former childhood friend of Shaft who is now a black panther and disgusted with his decadent lifestyle. Also keep an eye out for a small bit by Antonio Fargas, who is best known as Huggy Bear in 'Starsky And Hutch' and also went on to appear as Pam Grier's brother in 'Foxy Brown', and as Doodlebug in 'Cleopatra Jones'. 'Shaft' is a movie that changed the face of Hollywood forever, and is highly recommended to anyone who enjoys 1970s movies, music or fashions.