Although I know I've seen the original Shaft film, I really can't
recall it, beyond its theme by the legendary
Isaac Hayes, so I wasn't bogged down by having
to compare this offering with its fore-runner. This sequel is set in modern day
New York, yet there was still a Seventies feel to it, undoubtedly intentional.
Almost the entire cast is of 'ethnic origin', but it managed to avoid most of
the overt stereotyping familiar of the earlier era, and, despite its heavy
concentration on Black street-life, it steered well clear of falling into the
Blacksploitation genre. The standard of acting was incredibly high
all round.
Here we have Shaft, upholder of justice, in the true Judge Dredd fashion, first
on the scene of a racially motivated killing. The killer in this case being a
rather well-to-do white boy, who rather than face his crime in court is happy
to skip bail.
Shaft is determined to get his man, so when he returns to New York, Shaft arrests
him and sets about trying to find the only witness to the crime in order to get
her to testify and put our murderer behind bars.
Shaft has of course made enemies in the course of his police career, not least
some of the underworld he's prone to rubbing up the wrong way. So, whilst Shaft
is hunting down his witness, the underworld are doing likewise, with more
terminal intentions.
The friction between Shaft and the underworld is the mainstay of this film and
from where most of the action comes from. That said, most of the action is
pretty lame and suffers the usual problem, that the bad guys couldn't shoot
an Elephant with a machine gun, even if it were nailed to the floor not four
feet away. The good guys can of course put a hole in the bad guy's head from
over a mile away, using nothing more than a mouth organ.
It was hard to see how this film attracted itself an 18 certificate. The
violence was generally pretty muted, especially compared to some of the
'nastier' films that have done the rounds recently;
Gangster Number One in particular. A 15 certificate
would have been a much fairer assessment, and it's unlikely that any of the
more violent scenes would have needed to be cut at all.
Maybe I really am getting too desensitised, none of the killing, swearing had
any effect on me what-so-ever. Then again, it may have been just too much of an
effort to rise out of my boredom, because, boy, this film dragged on a bit.
There wasn't the mind-numbing boredom of Elizabeth nor
was it as sleep inducing as The Thin Red Line, but it
did stretch its story out lengthways, which was actually a fairly short 98
minutes.
I can't truly say that I lost interest in the film, what was there was good,
coherent and well delivered, but the pace was just so slow. The effect was not
unlike watching the only half-decent film on TV, late at night, because there's
nothing else on. Had the story itself been weaker, or the acting below the
excellent standard delivered, this would have been a terrible film.
There were a couple of really good moments, but they didn't make up for the
rest of the time. Perhaps I wasn't on the right wavelength; there is certainly
an argument that this was a Bro' film.
Perhaps my lethargy to it all stems from the simple observation that, had the
police finger printed the murder weapon on day one, and DNA matched the blood
on the killer with the victim, they'd have probably nailed the b-----d without
needing any eye witnesses at all.
