Johnny Angel’s Review of Shaft
Sure, I know, I’m a little late with this one, as usual. I don’t see a whole lot of movies in the theatre, but let’s just pretend somebody’s $5-8 are at stake here.
My overwhelming impression of this film is that when they decided to make a sequel to Shaft, they picked up the first script they could find and erased Steven Segal’s name off of it. That turns out not to be the case, but I’m afraid that only makes this earnest attempt to waste Samuel L. Jackson’s talent more tragic, because it also nearly wastes John Singleton’s (better known for Boyz N the Hood) talent as well. Jackson carries his scenes all by himself with no help from the script.
In fact, everyone does. The dialogue is hardly ever stellar, though it is rarely bad either, and all the actors do a fine job bringing life and dimension to their characters. Jeffery Wright plays a drug lord so thoroughly self-posessed that he can take a shit right in front of a guy he’s shaking down and makes you believe it makes no difference to him. Christian Bale, and the racially motivated yuppie killer, has a smugness you can’t wait to see somebody smacked off of him, which is all the more impressive given that in at least one scene we see that he can actually turn it off. Vanessa Williams shores up a role that amounts to little more than a plot convenience by just being Vanessa Williams, which is not to say she ever tries to steal any scenes.
The story is a crock of shit. The central murder in the story takes place so publically that even though there is only one direct witness, dozens of people can establish means, motive, opportunity and place the suspect near the scene of the crime. Plus, the direct witness’ driver’s liscence is quickly found in the suspect’s posession with the suspect’s thumbprint on it in the victim’s blood. Yet, we are expected to believe that Bale will still get away with it, because he’s rich and white. Because he hires Johnny Cochran and goes on Larry King Live and cries and talks about how much he loved The Wiz? No, in fact he maintains a sinister stance of spoiled whiteboy racism even with TV cameras in his face. Is there some kind of plea bargain? No, although he is put to trial on a manslaughter charge instead of for murder, in spite of clearly demonstrable premeditation. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much Law & Order, but I can’t imagine how this made sense to anyone.
Shaft’s mission focuses on the one witness, whose safety and cooperation must be secured, for some reason, and nobody even considers the overwhelming trail of evidence that has nothing at all to do with this lady, nor that the fact that she’s been demonstrably coerced and bribed is damning evidence against the suspect all by itself, even if she doesn’t cooperate. I won’t give away the ending, for those of you who might actually be delightfully suprised by this sort of thing, but it makes the entirely senseless story also entirely pointless.
Great actors, mediocre dialogue, and a shitty story. What the hell? Go rent it. It is Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson, after all.