My Thoughts on Shaft

Some things should be left alone. Case in point, Shaft. I'll admit, I'm not particularly well up on Shaft, and I've got pretty much zero connection to the character in any incarnation. So yeah, it's entirely possible that this is something that could affect my opinion on Shaft 2019, because my knowledge of any of the other Shafts is very, very limited. That said, this film is pretty damn bad, and proves what I said at the start there: some things need to be left alone. I think that Shaft should have been untouched for a number of reasons, like the fact that I don't think that anyone was crying out for another take on the character, or the fact that, far as I can tell, the whole ethos of this character really only works in the context of 1970s society. I think dated is the word to use here, because everything about this feels awfully old fashioned, and not in a good way

The plot revolves around FBI analyst JJ, the son of Samuel L Shaft, who is called in to investigate when JJ's friend is found dead. From there, the plot kind of goes all over the place, with random, nonsensical twists and frequent breaks for painfully unfunny gags. You see, JJ is a (gasp!) millennial, something that the film makes so many bizarre jokes about. Actually, you know those articles that say that millennials are ruining X and killing Y? This is the film equivalent of them, because Samuel L Shaft is a good old fashioned detective who rejects these new-fangled ideas like men talking about their feelings, or respecting women. The fact that the film laughs at these ideas rather than see how they're healthy and productive, and then make jokes about them is a particularly ill-judged decision. There's a sneering mean-spiritedness to Shaft that makes it such an unpleasant watch, and the comedy is a definite contributer to that. The constant millennial bashing (and it is constant) is broken up with such wonderous interludes as Samuel L Shaft doing a Trump impression and a weird joke about Lawrence Fishbourne. I'm not saying that these things shouldn't be laughed at, but with a script as stale and a tone as muddled as this, these jokes feel so half baked, and reek of a desperate want to be relevent. I get that the writers wanted to be sly and satirical, and as awesome as that should be, the film is already so unpleasant and messy that any attempt to pass any meaningful comment gets lost in a painfully dated haze of toxic attitudes and woefully repetitive action. When the film tries to be funny, there's rarely anything behind it, and I think that good comedy should always have some sort of a foundation, whether it come from a place of emotion or as some sort of social comment. The relationships are too thinly developed for it to be the former, and the film's attitude towards modern society is too dated for it to be the latter, so all of the comedy feels uncomfortable, ingenuine, and ultimately hollow

Not that the plot gives us much refuge. Nothing makes sense here. The film goes from being a pretty weak murder plot to something much larger and so much messier. The film has these constant, inexplicable twists that introduce crazy escalation into the story without really tying into the plot in any way, and so by the end, it's really anyone's guess what's going on. To be honest, the end of the plot is more concerned with (actually pretty dull) action and, as the tagline so elegantly puts it, "more Shaft than you can handle", because this is where Richard RoundShaft is introduced, which brings the total number of Shafts in this film to 3. Roundtree is actually quite good fun here, being the only character that's really likeable. It's obvious he's enjoying himself, and watching him in action is the best thing about the climax, and yeah, the film as a whole

The plot also goes for some misjudged father-son drama with JJ and Samuel L Shaft, with this bizarre "tender" moment in the middle of the film that feels so weird and unearned. These characters have absolutely zero chemistry onscreen, and their relationship is absolutely hollow. When the film does this, it feels at odds with the crass, violent madness that it obviously wants to focus on. It's a far too one dimensional film for any of these moments to resonate and feel like they're actually happening.

Shaft is an awkward film. I don't think that this story really works in 2019, and so what could have been a fun, retro throwback ends up feeling horribly dated and absolutely all over the place. I think where it goes wrong is in its refusal to adjust itself to 2019. Nostalgia is everywhere, but the best stories that use it now have modern sensibilities. Yeah, Shaft is set in the present day, but it mistakes a fondness for the good old days as a use of nostalgia and retro storytelling. Add to that it's constant criticism of millennials and you have something that just feels so out of place. It wears this on its sleeve of course, proud of its unwokeness, but that doesn't make it look edgy, it just makes it awkward. Samuel L Jackson is genuinely trying his best here, but his Shaft is so abrasive and unlikeable, so his natural charm is overshadowed by how shit of a person his character is. Shaft is a bad film made worse by how much it doesn't fit in 2019's cultural landscape. This just accentuates everything that was already bad, and it's just so tone deaf. Did we need another Shaft? No we did not