A belated sequel to the 2000 reboot of the early 1970s film franchise, the latest incarnation of Shaft is a pretty decent continuation of that earlier film. Samuel L. Jackson returns as the same character he played in the last installment and he’s reunited with the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, who was supposedly the Jackson character’s uncle in the earlier film. In one line of dialogue we learn the elder Shaft is actually the younger Shaft’s (Jackson) father but that’s only part of the family dynamic going on here. The second generation Shaft finds his estranged son (Jessie T. Usher) enlisting his help in solving a friend’s mysterious death from an overdose and that forms the plot.
Jessie Usher, Samuel Jackson and Richard Roundtree in Shaft
The problem with this latest installment in the series is that the story, involving the Shaft family’s attempts to bring down a drug lord, is probably the weakest of all the films in the series. Fortunately, the film makes up for that with its constant doses of humor, in a very distinctive old school fashion, and the wonderful chemistry of the actors representing the three generations of the Shaft family tree. Much of it is of a politically incorrect nature and will certainly offend some of the more sensitive members of today’s movie going audiences. Those with a higher tolerance for that sort of thing, however, will likely have a pretty good time with this newest chapter in the series. Others enter at your own risk.
Shaft is playing everywhere.
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