SHAFT:
It's My Duty to Please WHAT Booty?
by Sasha Stone

Taking the sex out of Shaft is like taking the sugar out of ice cream. Shaft was not just one bad mother ... shut your mouth! But he was also an undeniable sex machine. Unfortunately, the John Singleton update has replaced the sex with, naturally, more gun violence, the kind that would make even Chuck Heston squirm.

Quentin Tarantino revived the Blaxpoitation genre with his homage, Pulp Fiction. A remake of Shaft seemed imminent, particularly after the flood of Seventies remakes hit the theaters. But Singleton doesn't seem to be interested in paying homage to a cultural icon so much as in wiping the slate clean. He's taken John Shaft and made sense of him. Why isn't he all over the place chasing skirt? Because he's fighting racism and oppressive gang violence.

Out is the sleepy-eyed smoothie, Richard Roundtree. In is the new Shaft, an Armani-clad street fighting man, Samuel L. Jackson, hell-bent on justice by any means necessary. Could it be that Singleton, and screenwriter Richard Price, and perhaps Jackson, wanted to erase a racial stereotype of black men being interested only in sex? Wouldn't Shaft, if placed in our modern world, find a lot to be angry about? Either way, this interpretation of Shaft, while interesting, fails to capture the electrifying magic of the original.

The film opens with the unraveling of a racially-motivated crime. "Please don't tell me he's on this one," says the police captain. Indeed, detective Shaft to racist crime is like fire to gasoline. A waitress (Toni Collette) tips Shaft off to the prime suspect, a prune-faced Christian Bale as the son of a real estate tycoon. From here on out, the plot follows predictable lines: rich, white boy gets out on bail, Shaft gets angry, steps out of line, and the next thing you know, he's on the streets, without a job, hunting down the bad guys.

The plot would normally play second fiddle to the larger theme in the film: reviving a Seventies icon. But Singleton, who wrote the screenplay as well, takes Shaft too seriously. One obligatory scene nods back to the old superstar when Shaft tells a woman, "It's my duty to please that booty," and another where he tries to smooch up Gloria Reuben (hot off the set of ER). But there is never a display of skin to follow.

Where in the original, Shaft might have bedded one female character before getting vital information from her, in the update we have (which ends up being the most memorable scene in the film) Shaft does her a favor by nailing a gang-banger who's after her young son. "What's my name?" Shaft screams at the thug, cramming a pistol up his nose. "John Shaft!" he answers. "Wrong answer! What's my name?" "I don't know!" That's the right answer. Much momentum is gained in this scene - the bad-ass is back, indeed. Any questions? That scene will go down in cinema history alongside the "How am I funny?" Joe Pesci scene in Scorsese's Goodfellas.

However, that momentum is an exception to the rest of the film. Shaft seems too capable of winning the war, so even the battles become tedious. Having no weaknesses makes for a boring, even bratty at times, hero. Jackson plays it like he knows how the film is going to end, so we are never scared for him or any of the other characters.

Like so many action films of late, Shaft ups the violence while dampening the sex. Our ratings system punishes mostly for four-letter words and sex, which is probably the reason. Who are these people? How can sex be more damaging to young adults than hard-core violence? It's a mystery, of course, but it's just the way it is.

Because the plot is silly and, ultimately, pointless, we are left with a handful of wonderful performances to take away from the experience. As the racist rich boy, Christian Bale is so good that it is plainly obvious he's going to rule the A-list in no time at all. But walking away with the film with ease is Jeffrey Wright as Peoples Hernandez. Wright has what De Niro has: you never know what's coming next. His eyes are as unpredictable and stormy as a New England sky. His range as an actor is so extreme it's hard to believe he's the same guy who played Basquiat. Jeffrey Wright will win an Oscar. The only question is when.

Jackson as Shaft is also good, but bth Bale and Wright upstage him too easily, begging the question, was he the right choice to play John Shaft? He's also somewhat hurt by Richard Roundtree's small part (as "Uncle John") in the film, giving us a chance to compare the two side-by-side. Even with his oodles of charisma, Jackson, unfortunately, can't quite live up to Roundtree, who, even at this age, is still just too cool for words.

As the hunted, Toni Collette stares out blankly in every scene she's in, managing to look confused and clueless at the same time, if that's possible. Collette, and any opporuntunity to use her talent, was wasted. Another wasted character is Shaft's female partner, played by Vanessa L. Williams. Williams is good enough to deserve a more fleshed-out character - you think something more is going to develop that never does.

There are some electrifying moments in Shaft, of course. Any time the old Isaac Hayes theme begins to play, you know what Shaft is about to do, and pity the poor fool who gets in his way. The scenes between Bale and Wright are full of suspense and unpredictability, proving that Singleton does have what it takes to be an accomplished director. Something clearly got in his way on this project. Whether it was Jackson, as has been rumored, or the film's producer, Scott Rudin (as was stated in Time magazine this week), Singleton seems to have lost his vision along the way.

Singleton was the youngest director ever to be nominated for an Oscar for his debut, Boyz n' the Hood. He was criticized by Spike Lee for being a patsy to the white-controlled studio system, and for having been coddled by Steven Spielberg, among others. Singleton was the first black director "in the club." Since then, he's never quite lived up to the success of his first film. The Janet Jackson film, Poetic Justice, was interesting but failed to capture much attention. Shaft had Singleton in line to be one of the first big-time action directors from the African-American community, which makes the failure of Shaft quite significant.

However, Singleton has a sharp eye and quirky enough sensibility that he will no doubt continue to generate enough audience interest until he finds his light. This time around, we'll have to settle for a decent, but not exceptional, run-of-the-mill shoot-em-up.

CineScene, 2000