Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree) directed this 1971 detective story about John Shaft (Richard Roundtree), an African American private eye who has a rocky relationship with cops, an even rockier one with Harlem gangsters, and a healthy sex life. The script finds Shaft tracking down the kidnapped daughter of a black mobster, but the pleasure of the film is the sum of its attitude, Roundtree's uncompromising performance, and the thrilling, Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes. Parks seems fond of certain detective genre clichés (e.g., the hero walking into his low-rent office and finding a hood waiting to talk with him), but he and Roundtree make those moments their own. Shaft had a couple of sequels and a follow-up television series, but none had the impact this movie did. --Tom Keogh
2.
One of the first black action heroes blasts onto the Hollywood scene in this tale of John Shaft, a private eye who sets out to find the missing daughter of a Harlem gang kingpin. By modern standards, the edge might seem a little dull, but Isaac Hayes' score is fresh as ever. Based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman. Academy Award Nominations: 2, including Best Original Dramatic Score. Academy Awards: Best Song ("Theme from Shaft").
3.
"Hotter than Bond. Cooler than Bullitt " movie posters proclaimed. John Shaft was indeed a shut-your-mouth detective to reckon with a fact emphasized from the film's start by Isaac Hayes' Academy Award-winning Best Original Song and Oscar-nominated score.
Richard Roundtree plays the smart, tough, confident lead, a private investigator whose hunt for a kidnapped woman puts him in the middle of feuding syndicates. Gordon Parks directs from a screenplay that Ernest Tidyman (that same year's Oscar winner for The French Connection) co-scripted from his own novel. John Shaft is an icon of change from an era of change. Today, Shaft still tells it like it is.
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
<>
Movie Database
In Theaters
