Flak Magazine: Review of Shaft, 07-13-00

Gordon Parks' 1971 Shaft is not a great movie; although historically significant — Parks was the first black director of a studio film, and the film's dedication to its ethnically defined target audience didn't stop it from receiving an Academy Award for Isaac Hayes' theme song — it's not very accomplished as a detective story, action movie or social drama. That film's middle-of-the-roadness is the last legacy you want director John Singleton to bring to his modern-day reprise of Shaft, but, unfortunately, not only does he include it, he magnifies it.

For evidence, let's look to the middle of the road. The first time I saw the original was at a revival screening that featured a conversation with Parks as its foreword, and his last story regarded the title sequence that was about to unspool. He commanded star Richard Roundtree to walk through traffic across Times Square. Roundtree protested for fear of getting creamed; Parks just looked at him and said, "You're Shaft." The resulting shot is probably the best in the film, capturing the tension that defined John Shaft's fundamental struggle against social forces.

In the new version, which features Samuel L. Jackson as Roundtree's nephew John Shaft, the title character (not a private dick but an NYPD homicide detective) turns his back on a confrontation with a bigoted police commissioner and walks into traffic. But watching the stunt drivers pass on either side of Jackson is flat and pleasureless — too much sheen, too little grit, only a half-sense of defiance.

The last thing I expected from Singleton was a work of half-measures; his last two films (Higher Learning and Rosewood) have been fatally wounded by their full-bloodedness. The director renders them confused messes with his attempts to incorporate more major characters than he can ably direct, all the while unable to step away from overt politicking. Singleton received Oscar nominations for writing and directing Boyz N The Hood, his first film. On its face, Shaft seemed like a possible return to form — a chance to tell a story firmly rooted in modern African-American sensibilities while reinterpreting the first black film hero. The last thing I expected from Singleton was a Shaft that Martin Campbell (Goldeneye) could have directed.

The problem is really the much-ballyhooed script — infamous now because of the clash between Singleton, Jackson and script doctor Shane Salerno (all black) and producer Scott Rudin and original screenwriter Richard Price (both white). But that dispute was mostly over issues of cultural appropriateness (" Would Shaft do that?") and the film doesn't show much strain with respect to those questions. (Singleton said in the end, the only point on which he had to capitulate was Shaft's sex life, which is nonexistent — aside from picking up a bartender, the only sex is "stylishly" shot in the opening credits and features a Jackson body double.)

It's too bad the script argument didn't extend to how dumb the story was. Shaft — whose basic premise, remember, is that he'd "risk his neck for his brother man" — arrests Walter Wade (Christian Bale), the psychopathic white murderer of a black man, but the killer posts bail, leaves the country, is re-arrested by Shaft and posts bail again. Infuriated by this failure of the system, Shaft quits the force and dedicates himself to... bringing Wade to trial.

The explanation is that Price conceived of Shaft as a cop, and when Singleton and Jackson pointed out Shaft's "black private dick" aspect, his resignation was included. But Shaft spends the entire movie partnered with his cop buddies, all of whom are made to make a point of saying how much trouble they'll be in for helping Shaft. And as much of a stretch as that is, the movie's central premise — that Shaft has to find and protect the white waitress (Toni Collette) who witnessed Wade's crime so she can testify — is totally preposterous. It may have been a concession to Singleton and Jackson that Shaft quits the force, but it's also the character's most defining moment, and the fact that the rest of the script progresses in virtual ignorance of this fact is insulting.

Furthermore, Shaft isn't risking his neck for his brother man. The film's race politics are perhaps the most mainstream-friendly of Singleton's career, but an integral part of Shaft is his racial solidarity. In the original, Shaft partners with Mr. Big, a black drug dealer, to save the latter's daughter. And while it's notable that this movie features Shaft beating the snot out of a teenage black drug dealer so he'll stop enticing the son of a source whose assistance our hero needs, more to the point is that there's no one in the black community Shaft is trying to rescue in any sense — unless it's the community faith in the justice system. But Shaft has already scuttled it, and the movie's conclusion disparages it, anyway. Wade is not a serial race killer, just a (two-dimensional) bigot, and Shaft doesn't even have a whiz-bang climactic confrontation with him anyway. (Interestingly, Peoples Hernandez, a barrio drug kingpin, becomes the central villain, and even more interestingly, he's played — with scene-stealing glory — by African-American Jeffrey Wright.)

In any other movie, all of this might be all right. But this is Shaft. Almost no one will find the film's racial politics objectionable (although it's worth noting that they had to turn to a third ethnicity to find their villain), but I came to Shaft wanting my perceptions of race in America smacked around. I wanted outrage, insight, keen observation, revelatory scenarios, something to disagree with or argue about because this is Shaft. I wanted Singleton to slip a haymaker past the studio that would incense the viewing public enough to make this a relevant movie. But it's pap, straight up. It's an empty script into which you could drop Harry Callahan, Popeye Doyle or even John McClane without blinking.

Jackson certainly inhabits the Shaft character well — it's just the kind of role studio execs have wanted to drop him into since he branded himself onto the American psyche in Pulp Fiction. His barely-checked fury, his supreme self-confidence, his physical presence, his viper-like demeanor — coiled up before laughing, impassive before snapping — make the movies he appears in must-sees for his legions of devotees. And they won't be disappointed by Jackson here.

In no small part because of Jackson, I'll be there opening day for the sequel. The bland nature of the film reflects the too-safe attitudes of many studio denizens, and while sequels usually suffer because they're required to be even safer, the best sequels — The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Batman Returns — achieve the quality they do because the filmmakers have been validated and liberated by the success of the first film. Shaft proves the character is still culturally potent; I'm ready to see a movie in which he's culturally significant as well.

— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)