Shaft (UK)

This modern movie is more a sequal to the original than a remake because richard roundtree is still shaft and samuel l jackson plays his tough cousin.jackson is fantastic.christian bale is a worthy villan.the picture and sound are brilliant the extras are poor but a music video of the shaft theme tune plus a brill trailer helps this great movie

There are some very good things about this remake. The acting is excellent. Samuel L. Jackson IS Shaft. I can`t think of a better casting decision in the last 10 years. I think it is safe to say that this remake would not have happened without him. He is like Sean Connery as Bond - he just oozes cool.

But...the story tries to do too much. I mean, we have the racist killer, the drug dealer, the corrupt cops, Shaft searching for the witness, Shaft struggling to do what is right - yadda yadda. Too much is crammed in and as a result, the story doesn`t work as a whole. Subplots are introduced and then ignored for the rest of the film (I am thinking of Christian Bale being recruited by Wright to sell drugs to the upper-class— don`t worry, I`m not spoiling anything, since it plays no part anywhere else in the film). Wright made such a great villain that I wish they`d ignored the trite stuff about racism and drugs and just had him be a psycho for two hours. And that ending! Upon reflection, I can`t believe I was surprised by what occurred. I guess I just expected that the writers would be able to think of something a bit less cliché. After about 45 minutes, the plot just exists to string along action sequences anyway, so why muck it up with social pretenses on the corruption of the upper class mentality? I mean really, I go to Shaft to see a sex machine who`s a hit with all the chicks.

Of course, many will argue that a good plot and realistically drawn characters aren`t important in an action film, and I guess they`d be right, to an extent. And if you look at it that way, Shaft does provide just enough plot to push the action and create a somewhat compelling storyline. The character of Shaft is the real star, and Sam Jackson delivers.