Film Having not actually seen any blaxploitation films (yet) I came to the Shaft remake cold. I have a general idea of the style of the film making and to be honest this feels like a halfway job – an attempt to bring the genre into the late nineties but within a Hollywood sensibility, with more that hint of Elmore Leonard. It isn’t something I could imagine watching more than once, but it’s entertaining enough. But I’m of the school of thought that if you want to give your film any quality at all you need to have Samuel L Jackson in there, and as is the case in this film, having him swearing and shooting people gratuitously.
I’m at a loss to explain the plot, but let’s have a go. I think it’s about a rich white racist killing a rich black man and trying to get away with it. It’s very difficult to tell because it’s lost in middle of scene after scene of the most insane posturing. Shaft walks into a room, a café for example, threatens a few people, shouts a lot, shoots them if he needs to and leaves. Realistically this is the Harry Potter of the genre, taking a couple of hours to tell a story which could be resolved satisfactorily in twenty minutes. But there are a lot of quite funny scene, some good action sequences and is just about OK if you don’t want to think too much. There will twelve year old who’ll think this is the best film they’ve ever seen. Well this and 8 Mile.
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