Viewed in
2012
Formats
HDTV
Premise
Richard Roundtree stars a bad mutha-shut yo mouth, who must retrieve a crime lord's kidnapped daughter.
Loved
Isaac Hayes' theme song.
Liked
Roundtree's charming lead.
Disliked
Mediocre story.
Hated
Cheap audio quality.
Thoughts
There were some good things about it. Roundtree definitely embodied the meaning of cool, often talking back to non-black police associates, not afraid to play the race card to his advantage. For being one of the biggest influences of blaxploitation, there's very little that was exploitive. The themes, jive dialog, and characters were mostly grounded in realism.
It goes without saying that Hayes' transcendent theme song would make a scene of paint drying look badass. The rest of the score was decent, with lyrics reflecting the gritty yet cool tone of the flick.
Unfortunately, Roundtree's infectious charm could not mask the so-so writing. Adapted from the novel, the main plot took a while to reveal itself, then the story took a detour. After finally finding his right-hand man, and banging a few chicks without romantic repercussions, Shaft finally got back to the task at hand.
While it was cool (and risky) to have a black-heavy cast, I found the majority of the characters boring and hampered by subpar acting. The only semi-charming person was Shaft's police ally, who of course, take no crap from our hero. Lastly, the sound quality was horrible. There's one particular exterior scene where you hear cars during one character's dialog, then bad ADR (w/o cars) during the other character's dialog.
Aside from its cultural impact and the iconic theme song, Shaft as a whole is just okay. There have been plenty of better films about gritty cops, badass urban heroes, and black-empowerment, but they all probably owe a bit to this 1971 feature.
