I remember when Pauline Kael first attacked the vigilante aspect of "Dirty Harry." I don't see how changing the color of the cop glorified for social cleansing makes the product any less fascistic. And the ethnic stereotyping, particularly of Latinos, but also of WASPS, is no less objectionable from a black director than it would be from a white one.

There is some range of black characters, and a stereotyped solidary Italian family wanting nothing to do with lawmen. There are rich white devils in control of the "justice system." And a drug gang of wacko Latinos (headed by Jeffrey Wright). There's even a stereotypically silly black sidekick (Busta Rhymes). Against all these ridiculous but dangerous mortals is the invincible masterless warrior-judge played by Samuel L. Jackson.

Unlike the original Shaft (Richard Roundtree, who here plays Jackson's uncle), this one takes no pleasures, sexual or other. Although he lays claim to being endowed ("l.d.") to a cocktail waitress whom he has bedded before, he has no interludes of carnal pleasure over the course of the movie. He does not appear to derive any particular pleasure from shooting people, either. Mostly he glowers and postures.

The plot is recycled from hundreds of movies and tv shows: the witness who has disappeared, the well-connected psychopathic rich kid killer, the determined detective, the drug gang, etc. Yawn! I find it hard to believe that a policeman would punch someone under arrest (not once, but twice) in front of the press and his boss without being suspended. Or hurl his badge past the head of a judge in court. Or survive the shootouts in which he is heavily outgunned. Or be there to meet the returning fugitive. And, surely, the racist son of a billionaire would not go into these neighborhoods alone, day or night and could lay his hands on 40 grand without having to become a dealer for a small-time drug "lord." Etc.

As in so many summer action movies, far more thought seems to have been given to choreographing the shoot-outs than to developing characters or a remotely plausible plot. Samuel L. Jackson glowers well and talks trash, but this film has no more soul than a Charles Bronson or Jean-Claude van Damme vehicle.


Recommended: No