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Reviews:
It
Wasn’t Shaft
by Scott Neufville
Shaft
(1971) – Super
Shaft (2000) – Wimpy
The 2000 film Shaft
starring Samuel L. Jackson as John
Shaft, a New York City cop turned rogue
after the legal system failed to
appropriately prosecute a white man
guilty of a racial murder is, by itself,
a decent flick.
But compared to the original 1971
version of the same name starring
Richard Roundtree, Shaft 2000 can hardly
compare.
I
like Sam Jackson, so despite being a fan
of the original Blaxploitation
trend-setter, I was pretty open minded
going into Shaft 2000 as I would imagine
its director John Singleton (Boys in
the Hood, Poetic Justice, Higher
Learning, and Rosewood) would
have wanted me to.
So opened minded I was.
In this new
version, John Shaft turned in his badge
to pursue the racist American murderer
Walter Wade Jr. played by Englishman
Christian Bale only to run into Wade's
alliance with Dominican gangster Peoples
Hernandez, an old enemy of Shaft played
by African-American actor Jeffrey
Wright.
In this Shaft,
I found Christian Bale and Jeffrey
Wright’s performances as the major
villains to be believable, as was the
New York City setting, and Hip Hop
artist Busta Rhymes surprised me with a
remarkable acting performance that I
hadn't expected. Even the original John
Shaft (Richard Roundtree) made a special
guest appearance as Uncle John.
In an interview,
John Singleton said that Busta Rhymes’
gritty street-wise character Rasaan
symbolized that rogue side of Sam
Jackson’s John Shaft, but I didn’t
get that impression.
For me, the age gap between
Jackson and Busta Rhymes made that
connection invisible, especially when it
dawned on me that Gordon Parks
(legendary photographer and director of
the 1971 version) used the same formula
within the original film, the difference
being that what Gordon Parks did 29
years earlier worked.
Back then, Richard Roundtree’s
rogue conscious was reflected by the hot
headed Harlem militant Ben Buford
portrayed in an underrated performance
by Chris St. John.
The chemistry development between
Buford and Shaft throughout the film was
interesting and clear, because among
many reasons, the characters were within
the same age gap and had even grown up
together.
In Shaft 2000, Sam Jackson is old
enough to be Busta Rhymes’ dad and
despite looking good for his age, (mid
fifties) the gap showed.
Busta Rhymes is an icon for the
present day Hip Hop generation, Sam
Jackson’s age bracket is closer to
that of Roundtree’s, the seventies
jive-soul era.
As I’ve said
before, I like Sam Jackson and I was
awed by his work in, among many films, Pulp
Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Unbreakable,
but thanks to Shaft (2000), I
discovered a pattern in his
performances.
I noticed that whenever Jackson
is under pressure to portray an
established icon, he seems to try too
hard.
I felt he did this in Star
Wars: The Phantom Menace, and I
definitely thought he did this in Shaft.
The
original John Shaft (Roundtree's), like
in words of the film’s classic theme
song, was tough, cool, stylish, and a
smooth womanizer but he didn't have to
put it in your face; it's just the way
the character was in a classic example
of “show, don't tell” (with the
exception of the song's words), so it
was believable.
Sam Jackson, on the other hand,
tried too hard to be something he
portrays quite well in other films, even
better than Richard Roundtree.
Such was evident from overly
stylish leather jackets, corny pick up
line deliveries, an unrealistic
consistency to stay well groomed,
unconvincing invincibility, and a
monstrous goatee that made him look like
a Star Trek villain.
Christian Bale and Jeffrey Wright
quite convincingly portrayed characters
alien to their real demographics;
Jackson could hardly play himself.
But what about Roundtree?
Despite
such a ground-breaking portrayal of
Shaft by Richard Roundtree in 1971, his
presence and impact on Shaft
(2000) was minimal because he didn't
just age thirty years, he forgot how to
be Shaft after thirty years.
In this film Roundtree was old,
passive, and fragile.
Although I can see where this
behaviour might fit into the film,
perhaps reflecting Jackson's mellower
and more reasonable side, Shaft fans
like myself who are understandably wary
of remake attempts can't help but be
disappointed by Roundtree's
near-betrayal of the legendary
character.
It's
like Jay Leno said in a stand up comedic
routine at the 2000 NAACP awards about
the film: “I love Sam Jackson, but it
wasn't Shaft!”
Well,
in Shaft (2000), neither was
Richard Roundtree.
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