'Shaft' (2000) - Movie Review

They used the same damn title song. It's a spectacularly cheesy 1970s song praising the coolness of John Shaft. I think they rerecorded, but it's still awful. This time Samuel L. Jackson is "John Shaft," although Richard Roundtree is back as his uncle (also John Shaft, although it's Jackson who's front and centre). My main complaint about the previous movie is that Shaft was a total asshole and no matter how cool, he couldn't have kept the loyalty of his friends because he demanded a lot and gave nothing. They've fixed that on this outing: Jackson's Shaft actually does things for his friends and occasionally treats them with respect (although he's still a hot-tempered asshole).

Shaft starts out in the police force, and is involved in investigating the murder of a young black man. The murder appears to have been committed by Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale), but the only possible witness (Toni Collette) vanishes and Wade skips bail for two years. When he comes back to the U.S. he makes an uneasy alliance with the Dominican drug lord "Peoples" (Jeffrey Wright), and the two of them cause all kinds of havoc.

Still not a good movie, but better produced and acted.