Shaft

This action drama puts a new spin on Shaft, one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the namesake nephew of the legendary private eye (Richard Roundtree), is a street-smart police detective who with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams) has been ...more

John Singleton's 2000 remake resurrects the popular black detective from the early '70s and adds a layer of complexity rarely seen in the original series. The story, which pits NYPD detective John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the nephew of the original private dick, against a rich, white killer played by Christian Bale, is basically a pretext for a series of showdowns between Shaft, the rich kid, and anyone else who gets in the detective's way. This may sound simple, and in some sense the script ...more