A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Shaft (2000)

Date Viewed: 7/3/00

Details:

Samuel L. Jackson

Vanessa Williams

Jeffrey Wright

Dan Hedaya

Richard Roundtree

Philip Bosco

Written and directed by: John Singleton

Score: 1/2

The Review: Remake and updating of the genre-establishing Shaft (1971), but without the novelty or the original driving musical score. Yes, there's a small Hayes reprise, but it's nowhere near enough to make this interesting.

Jackson is excellent and well-drawn as the big city detective out to get justice for a murder that is clearly racially-motivated, and just as clearly being covered up. However, there's a very high body count, disturbingly so, and a paucity of wit, both of which combine to make this less entertaining than it might have been. In an amusing turn of characterization, Roundtree (the original Shaft) is cast as "Uncle Shaft" to Jackson's Shaft; but thirty years has not done Roundtree well.

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