SHAFT R
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Christian Bale, Toni Collette, Richard Roundtree, Busta Rhymes, and Jeffrey Wright
Eric says: ********* (9)
The best American action movie that I have seen in a long time. The last one filled with such gratutious mayhem on this level while keeping it all in fun was the original Die Hard. The missing star in the above equation (the scale goes up to 10 stars) was the glaring lack of a Shaft staple, the women.
We start out following the racially motivated murdering of a young black man by a priveliged son-of-a-rich-powerful-guy (Christian Bale). And so we think that this will be the sum of the film, Shaft tracking down the racist murderer. That's when the twist comes in. The main bad guy changes mid-stream while not abandoning Bale. An intelligent piece of action fluff throughout, the script actually takes us somewhere tangible, even if it does seem that we've been there before.
Jackson is a perfect Shaft (here playing cousin John Shaft to the original). He is a detective for the NYPD whose actions, while getting results, are seen as over-the-top. He is occasionally partnered with Vanessa Williams, looking downright middle-aged, and a "nice racist" cop, portrayed by Lee Tergeson, of HBO's Oz. Sam just oozes the confidence and defiance that are necessary. In an early scene, we see Shaft walking away from a crime scene through the middle of a busy street at night. This is the pseudo-reality that exists for this movie. There are some obviously over-the top scenarios here, but taken in the "it's only a movie" context, it's entirely alright. Shaft can always immediately kill every bad guy with a single shot, even while he's running. He can throw a ninja star-like badge at a judge and just walk right out of the courtroom. Because he's The Man.
While supporting characters aren't necessary when Jackson stars, they enrich the whole film. Bale as a calm, calculated yuppie is essentially reprising his role from American Psycho, just with a bit more sanity. Collette, a favorite of mine from The Sixth Sense, is serviceable as The Witness Who Knows Too Much. Rhymes is an entertaining sidekick, a fine job for his first major acting gig. But the guy who almost upstages Jackson is Wright, playing a Latino neighborhood kingpin. His overly-accentuated accent just sets the stage for a decent amount of character development for a movie such as this. Under that heavy accent and evil facial hair is a true actor. His scenes with Bale are especially electric.
If you see one movie this summer, this is the one. (update - see Scary Movie, too!)