Hey folks, Harry here and maaaaaaan, I wish I coulda seen this one... but not instead of the film I saw tonight... the brilliant documentary DARK DAYS.... But damn I hope this film turns out as cool as it has the right to be. I've heard trouble on the set and even one guy told me tonight that he thought Singleton was just this side of mentally retarded... And personally, I can't understand where this sort of thing comes from. It's sad. BUT I DO KNOW THIS! I'm dying to see SHAFT, and here's the first look at the film, in an extremely rough advance screening. Let's see what others think.... Here ya go...
Just got back from a theatre-packed screening of a raw uncompleted Shaft at the 84th Street Sony Loew's here in New York City. I also stuck around afterwards for the focus group.
So. Spoilers below.
The plot is not too predictable, not too original. It takes some roads we haven't been down in a while. The plot of the version we saw (you know the schpiel: it's an unfinished movie; they can change it any way the want before release) involves Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft investigating a murder of a young black man. He's got good evidence a snotty rich bigoted white kid did it, but the white kid flees the country and a waitress who witnessed the murder goes into hiding. The movie revolves around Shaft looking for the girl and trying to bring the white kid to justice. No sex. Lots of gunfire. One car chase.
A lot of people said the movie reminded them of "New Jack City" and "Boyz in the Hood," but they were missing the point: a lot of black urban movies have borrowed from the three Shaft movies which were released between 1970 and 1973. This is not one of those landmark movies, but it's good of its kind. A clean, uncomplicated extension of the original three. It's fast, funny, unpreachy, tough and street-wise. Violent, too. Whether you _feel_ the movie or merely enjoy it seems to be based on whether one has seen (and likes) the other Shaft movies. When the temporary soundtrack opened with the legendary Shaft theme song (by Isaac Hayes), it ran right up my spine. (And now I can't forget Lisa and Bart Simpson's version, either).
As a New Yorker I'd say the Bronx has never looked so good. It lacks some street cred with real slang only heard in a light dusting and the bad guys all appearing just a little too laughable or lovable. There's very little of the random posturing you'd see in life and the outdoor scenes are too clean: damned little spraypaint, trash, traffic noise, blaring radios, fighting neighbors, shouting kids, any kids at all besides a single baby in an interesting little scene. No grit, no edge. Where's that hazy summer-in-the-city look? And where are the junky cars? It's a stylized Bronx, but not as stylized as, say, "Rumble in the Bronx" which stylized so far as to add mountains to the New York City skyline.
Jeffrey Wright as a tattooed Hispanic (probably Dominican) gangster named "Peoples" in the Bronx is the single greatest character in the film. He's exaggerated similarly to John Turturro as the pervert in "The Big Lebowski" although a number of the 22 people in our focus group (which was half black, half white, no obvious Hispanics, mostly early to mid-twenties, though one older couple) thought Wright's portrayal was dead on. He's got exquisite timing, that's for sure, and his attempt to get the naive white kid to front for him downtown in return for Peoples' bumping off the witnessing waitress offers some fairly complex perspectives on domain, habitat and culture. He's got the thick Caribbean Spanish accent down cold, far better than, say, Pacino in Scarface, though there is substantial difference between the Cuban and Dominican Spanish dialects. This is important: if you know a little Spanish you're going to get a few more jokes.
Samuel L. Jackson is untouchable. A fine man in a fine role. The fifty-year-old woman in the focus group couldn't stop crowing about him and a coupla of the white girls looked like they were coming down with the vapors. Last time I saw women swoon over a man like that was when Denzel Washington visited St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and half the female population of the Leeward Islands tried to hijack catamarans and seaplanes to go out and meet him. Jackson is tough, well-dressed and confident. Jackson's got eyes like my father when he's angry.
Richard Roundtree makes slightly more than a cameo appearance, apparently as a retired cop who's now a private investigator. When he and Jackson are on the screen together it's damned near like a time-travel movie in which Shaft runs into himself decades earlier (or later, depending on your perspective). Roundtree's role is short and one-dimensional, though harmless. There's a nice little moment with him escorting two honeys out the door with a clear understanding they're both with him.
Vanessa Williams is beautiful, as always, although in one unexplained party scene (what were they celebrating? Shaft socking a white kid? Shaft never missing his target? Shaft getting angry at the system and/or his superior and quitting like the protagonist in every other cop movie?) she's got pimply plastic-looking breasts that need a good sanding and spackling. Her acting talents are underused (as are Roundtree's) and she is a minor part of the movie. I don't doubt she'll appear large in the advertisements, however.
Toni Collete (the mother from "The Sixth Sense") plays the witness waitress. She's whiny and crying and fearful the whole movie and not much fun to look at or listen to. I'da much rather had more Vanessa Williams and no Toni Collette at all.
Busta Rhymes is there and in a fine mood as a casual buddy of Shaft's, American football star Lawrence Taylor is in there lookin' all sly, there's some clever use of some less-known New York stereotypes, and a lot of cardboard cutout cops and criminals. Dan Hedaya as a crooked cop probably shot all his scenes in three days. They could have used a puppet for all the realism they gave his role.
So my summary: it'll be huge and it'll deserve it. A straight-up action flick.
I only hope they don't use the ending we saw.
Please sign me,
Moko Jumbie
