By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
Samuel L. Jackson tools up as John Shaft, the New York City cop who's "too black for the uniform, too blue for the brothers." When a rich man's son, Walter Wade jun (Christian Bale), murders a black youth, Shaft arrests him. But his
best witness, waitress Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), disappears. The lad gets bail and skips to Switzerland. Shaft gets angry, so angry he throws his badge at the judge and stalks out of the courtroom.
When the rich kid returns to the US after two years to face trial Shaft nabs him. Now the plot involves Shaft's partner Rasaan (Busta Rhymes), drug kingpin Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright), whom Wade has hired to bump off the waitress/witness, a sexy narcotics cop (Vanessa Williams), a bad cop (Dan Hedaya) and his worse partner (Lee Tergesen).
So far, so close to the original 1971 "blaxploitation" movie and its sequels, with predictable guest appearances from big cars, drugs, cigars, guns, sleazy nightclubs, gold chains, racism, babes, black leather coats, expensive booze, crooked white cops and even the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, in a somewhat clumsily devised supporting role as the original Shaft, the new Shaft's uncle. And a chase and shootout at the end.
But Jackson makes the retreaded Shaft a complicated man which, despite the line in Isaac Hayes' classic theme song, the original never was. Roundtree posed in his leather trenchcoat. Jackson is mean. Dirty. Knows it, likes it and fears it at the same time. He makes this a muchbetter movie than it threatened to be. And, yes, he has signed for two sequels.
Running time: 98 mins
Rental: Saturday
