
They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother. Well, Samuel L. Jackson plays the cool, calm character of Shaft pretty well. It’s the script I had a problem with. This is the same movie you’d see any night of the week on any given movie channel.
Shaft is full of drug slingers, crooked cops, rich brats, and all sorts of laughs. There were so many funny lines, I was waiting for Eddie Murphy to pop up and inform us that this movie was in fact Beverly Hills Cop Part Five! Through all the smiles, you find Shaft keeping control over the city of New York while a rich white boy, executed annoyingly well by Christian Bale, is on trial for killing a black student. The story is completely obvious through and through.
There is a cast of characters that are around to help Shaft get along. Vanessa Williams plays feisty cop Carmen. Busta Rhymes plays the rasta man, Rasaan, who drives Shaft from crime to crime. Busta, even though painfully obvious, is at least funny. Perhaps the best character, of course aside from Shaft, is Peoples, the drug lord played by Jeffrey Wright. His unintelligible way of speaking is hilarious and makes for many choice scenes. Wright plays this insane character perfectly.
I went in expecting nothing and didn’t leave feeling better or worse for it. I think the person sitting behind me summed the movie up best when she said, “Boy, they hyped this movie up. Too bad it didn’t live up to it.”
+charlie craine
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