Is there any room in the new millennium for John Shaft? A spot in the new generation for the sexy, tough, street-smart hero of “Shaft,” the signature black action movie of the early ’70s?
Apparently yes. Played by Samuel L. Jackson with lots of black leather and droll swagger and directed by John Singleton with a keen eye and mucho gusto, this new “Shaft” has the stuff to grab its audience in a big way, maybe even opening up a new franchise.
You can’t recapture the past, and you couldn’t really combine all the elements, cinematic and social, that made the original “Shaft” such a sensation. But Singleton’s modern version does the next best thing. It pungently reawakens our memories of Gordon Parks’ 1971 movie — which starred Richard Roundtree and had one of moviedom’s all-time great title songs (Isaac Hayes’ hot, buttery, soulful “Shaft” number, with its wah-wah beat and shrieking choruses) — and then goes off in zingy new directions.
“Shaft” is one movie remake that gets almost everything right, from the credits song to the inside jokes to the whole tone and swing of the piece — though, strictly speaking, it isn’t a remake at all. It’s actually a continuation of the original three-movie series (1971-’72-’73), with Roundtree reprising the role of private eye John Shaft and Jackson playing the star role here as Roundtree’s nephew, also named John Shaft, an NYPD detective.
The movie has a lot of plot. When we first see Jackson as the new Shaft, strutting down nocturnal Manhattan streets to Hayes’ rerecorded number, he’s about to investigate the Manhattan murder of Trey Howard (Mekhi Phifer, of “Clockers”) — a young black man who seems to have strayed into the wrong pricey restaurant with the wrong interracial group in front of the wrong bigoted, spoiled-rotten rich white kid, Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale). Wade Jr. is the kind of protected psychopath whose first reaction whenever he’s caught in a misdeed is a smirk and the query: “Do you know who my father is?”
Shaft knows very well: Walter Wade Sr. (Philip Bosco) is a big-time, big-bucks, Big Apple mover-and-shaker with more than enough moolah to bail out Junior again and again –which he obviously has. But Shaft spots blood on Junior’s hands and blood on the neck of frightened waitress Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), to match the blood on Trey’s cracked head. He makes the collar, with zest, then disgustedly watches Junior, at trial, calmly post his $200,000 bond and skip the country for an extended Swiss ski vacation.
Two years later, Junior turns up again to face a trial now hamstrung by the disappearance of star witness Palmieri. Meanwhile Shaft has made new enemies — notably murderous Latino Five Families drug czar Peoples Hernandez (played to the hilt by Jeffrey Wright). Unfortunately, Junior and Peoples, both busted and roughed up by Shaft, meet in the holding cell. It’s immediately a match made in hell. Junior wants Peoples to find and kill Palmieri; Peoples wants Junior to be his downtown pipeline for heroin and crack to the rich and famous.
Now Shaft has to find Palmieri first, while dodging Peoples’ thugs, the Wade family fortune and a few crooked cops. His help: some funky street pals and cop buddies, including fellow NYPD vet Carmen Vasquez (Vanessa Williams). And, of course, good old Uncle John (Roundtree), who tries to talk his nephew into joining the p.i. firm. To nobody’s surprise, mayhem ensues — with Jackson’s Shaft a perfect furious eye at the center of this urban hurricane.
Like Shaft himself, this is a movie that shows respect for its elders. Roundtree is a nice mellow, avuncular presence, and Parks, the legendary photographer-writer turned movie director, pops up in one bar scene, addressed as “Mr. P.” Just as the ’71 “Shaft” reflected the temper of its time — with black revolutionaries and rival black and Mafia mobsters among the key characters — this 2000 “Shaft” mirrors some mean streets of today. The new movie, like its predecessor, is a crime thriller with a moral viewpoint, an eye and ear for street color and a taste for macho movie fantasy.
Blending it all together, backed by an ace production team, director Singleton connects with the audience in a visceral way — as he hasn’t, really, since his remarkable directorial debut, at 24, with 1991’s “Boyz N the Hood.” His star, Jackson, makes the role his own with surprising ease. As always, Jackson has staggering presence and a killer glare, but he also captures his predecessor’s charm, confidence and hair-trigger violence, vitalizing his scenes with sheer actor’s intensity and a genuine sense of menace.
Jackson is matched, this time out, by Bale — who plays Junior as the sort of vicious yuppie he also essayed in “American Psycho,” but makes him even meaner — and by Wright, who delivers one of the most memorable movie villains in recent years as the insolent drug king Peoples. Wright cracks the role in two, playing the first part of the movie with such laid-back insolence and lisping, slow-mo narcissism that he seems naturally narcotized. Then, after a violent turnabout, he goes totally psycho. It’s such a spellbinding turn that even if you’ve seen Wright in “Basquiat” or “Celebrity,” you might not recognize him here.
One thing missing in the new movie is Parks’ bow to black revolutionary politics. Young Shaft’s funkier ties aren’t to Malcolm X wannabes but to rappers (Busta Rhymes plays his waggish sidekick Rasaan). There’s another crucial revision: Uncle John’s casual promiscuity and quick seductions are gone. Coming right in the first flush of the Sexual Revolution, the old “Shaft” movies took regular bedroom breaks. But this movie’s agenda obviously includes upgrading the female characters from the pliant playmates of the past to co-workers or people of respect: Williams as a tough cop, Collette as a conflicted witness and Lynne Thigpen as the victim’s angry mother.
That’s fine — but, reportedly, Jackson himself complained about the picture’s lack of sensuality, pointing out that the new Shaft was now a more typical sexually repressed, violent American super-hero. I think he’s right. Shaft, and his movie, could use some sensuality, though not the selfish ’70s-style high jinks of his uncle. After all, he’s no Rambo.
And he’s not really the old Shaft either. But as long as they keep replaying Isaac Hayes and recycling that leather wardrobe — and as long as we get a director this connected and a cast this high-powered — he’ll do.
`SHAFT’
(star) (star) (star)
Directed by John Singleton; written by Richard Price, Singleton, Shane Salerno, based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman; photographed by Donald E. Thorin; edited by John Bloom, Antonia Von Drimmelen; production designed by Patrizia Von Brandenstein; music by David Arnold, Isaac Hayes; produced by Scott Rudin, Singleton. A Paramount Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:38. MPAA rating: R (strong violence and language).
THE CAST
John Shaft ……….. Samuel L. Jackson
Carmen Vasquez ……. Vanessa Williams
Peoples Hernandez …. Jeffrey Wright
Walter Wade Jr. …… Christian Bale
Diane Palmieri ……. Toni Collette
Rasaan …………… Busta Rhymes
Jack Roselli ……… Dan Hedaya
Uncle John Shaft ….. Richard Roundtree
