Extras: Featurette, Interviews, Trailer, Music Videos
Director:
John Singleton
(Baby Boy, Boyz N The Hood, Higher Learning, Poetic Justice, Rosewood, Shaft (2000))
Producers:
Scott Rudin and John Singleton
Screenplay:
Richard Price, John Singleton and Shane Salerno
Music:
David Arnold
Cast:
John Shaft: Samuel L. Jackson
Carmen Vasquez: Vanessa Williams
Peoples Hernandez: Jeffrey Wright
Walter Wade Jr.: Christian Bale
Rasaan: Busta Rhymes
Detective Jack Roselli: Dan Hedaya
Diane Palmieri: Toni Collette
Uncle John Shaft: Richard Roundtree
Who is the black private dick, that's a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft
Samuel L. Jackson reprises the role as Detective John Shaft, playing
nephew to the original Richard Roundtree, who sadly gets very little
to do here other than be a sounding board for a few crack from Jackson about
the way things used to be.
The plot's rather thin on the ground as well, with Brit Christian Bale
as racist American Walter Wade Jr., son of a wealthy real-estate high-flyer, which
makes him believe he's untouchable when he batters a black man to death outside
a bar in the street and the only witness being timid barmaid Diane Palmieri
(Toni Collette), although when the heat's on he turns to local drug
dealer Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright) after an unlikely introduction
earlier on.
But what's the most important thing about this new incarnation is that, if
you can get past all the "nigger" and "motherfucker" phrases,
which director John Singleton probably had left over after his script
for Boyz N The Hood, you're left with an action flick that's fast, loud
and very proud, even if it does use well-worn themes such as corruption within
the police force as well as the hero of the hour quitting his job and setting
out on his own because he thinks he's been delivered a raw deal.
Samuel L. Jackson comes out of this extremely well though as the
epitomy of cool and the man with an eye for all the ladies, which thankfully
we don't get to see the end result of as fake sex scenes in Hollywood films
tend to be about as titillating as watching paint dry. Christian Bale
also puts in a strong performance, but there is less to shout about from
singer Vanessa Williams who is very much underused here. Toni Collette's
always crying her eyes out or looking unhappy which makes you think she came
straight from the set of
The Sixth Sense
and the usually reliable Dan Hedaya just bumbles about with a cartoonish
smirk on his face throughout the movie. Finally, "gangsta" rapper Busta
Rhymes shows his face, waffling away as Shaft's friendly accomplice
Rasaan.
Presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, from the stylish opening
credits through to the hi-energy action shots and the camera pans revealing
Jackson's face when he needs to look mean and moody, it's nothing short of
excellent.
The average bitrate is a high and fairly steady 7.28Mb/s.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound soundtrack is available in English and
German only. Gunshots, smashing glass, Isaac Hayes' monumental theme
tune - it's all here, perfectly.
There's around 30 minutes of content total amongst the Featurette
and Interviews section, all mixing together soundbites from the cast
and crew with non-anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen clips from the film. A
2-minute 16:9 non-anamorphic trailer is also included as are pop promos
for Isaac Hayes: Them from Shaft and R.Kelly: Bad Man.
There are a pitiful number of chapters in the mere 12, but the subtitles
redress the balance with 15 in total: English (and hard of hearing),
Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic,
Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish.
The disc's main menu contains some animation and music from the film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
