Synopsis
New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.
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Cast
- Samuel L. JacksonJohn Shaft
- Vanessa WilliamsCarmen Vasquez
- Jeffrey WrightPeoples Hernandez
- Christian BaleWalter Wade, Jr.
- Busta RhymesRasaan
- Dan HedayaJack Roselli
- Toni ColletteDiane Palmieri
- Richard Roundtree"Uncle" John Shaft
- Ruben Santiago-HudsonJimmy Groves
- Josef SommerCurt Flemming
Recommendations
- 75
Baltimore Sun
There's good trash: throwaway, intellectually undemanding action movies that, despite their heavy body counts and hard edges, are executed with a touch of class and a sunny disposition. - 75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Shaft is still enormously involving. It's popcorn, but very fresh. - 70
Variety
Samuel L. Jackson instantly takes the mantle from Mr. Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree, and runs with it on pure style and charisma. - 67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Essentially works, even though the script is a mess and John Singleton's direction is often clumsy and heavy-handed to an annoying degree. - 63
San Francisco Examiner
The movie's primary narrative weakness is that its racism plot points seem ripped from the headlines of a "Geraldo" newsletter and stretched into a string of terribly executed car chases. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
It's a bad sign when audience enthusiasm peaks during the credits sequence. - 60
Rolling Stone
Shaft scores by lacing ba-da-boom action with social pertinence. - 60
TNT RoughCut
Singleton's lack of influence makes Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" look far funkier in comparison.
