Kyle Kaplan
SHAFT_5350.dng
They called it “blaxploitation”—Hollywood movies from the early 1970s that belatedly represented the black American experience from an insider’s perspective. The most successful of the lot, Shaft (1971), starred Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, black private eye walking the hard streets of Harlem. Samuel L. Jackson picked up the mantle as the detective’s nephew, John Shaft II, in a film also titled Shaft (2000). Now, II’s son, JJ (Jessie Usher), keeps the dynasty fresh in the newest Shaft (2019).
The movie opens in Harlem, 1989, with Shaft II arguing with his wife Maya (Regina Hall) in a parked car. Maya’s verbal barrage can’t distract the deceptively sleepy-eyed detective from what’s about to go down—the hit squad advancing on their car. Barely perturbed, he shoots with deadly aim and a firestorm erupts. Then, we see the baby in the back seat. It’s little JJ, who will grow to become the protagonist in round three of a saga that returns with less frequency than Spider-Man but with a higher body count.
The baby-on-board is an incredibly cutesy touch, but so goes Shaft. The newest edition, directed by Tim Story (Ride Along), runs on an unstable blend of cute, crude and brutal. Shaft is a comedy with many hilarious moments and nearly an equal number that are utterly charmless.
Most of Shaft’s laughs come from Jackson’s always scene-stealing performances. Meeting his son for the first time in 25 years, he sizes him up immediately. JJ is a politically correct millennial, his existence constructed from apps and trendy lifestyle apparel. He’s a techno-dweeb in button down shirts. Shaft II has tons of fun riding roughshod over the scrupulously sensitive verities of his 21st-century son. He’s an old-school dude jousting with the brave new world and—topping it off—he thinks his son has gotten a little too white for his own good. Study the contrast: Shaft II’s Afro-centric crib and JJ’s blandly fashionable Ikea loft. Driving the point home, JJ is at his desk in an early scene (he’s a digital analyst for the FBI) munching an Oreo cookie.
The mysterious death of JJ’s friend Karim (Avan Jogia) brings him together with Shaft II in a barely coherent plot otherwise populated by paper-thin stereotypes. But who worries about plot in a picture like this? The fun and insights—if that’s what they are—are mostly sparked by the generation gap between a memorably enacted, estranged father and son.
The latest Shaft was conceived to milk money from a recognizable name in the black catalog while written to redress the machismo and other currently doubtful characteristics of its hero. And yet, old school Shaft II wins the day in almost every scene. Even though JJ’s digital skills turn up the leads, when the feet hit the ground (and the feces the fan), it’s Shaft II who achieves victory with swagger and blunt force. JJ relies on GPS but II knows the city. The son promises to text his girl pal Sasha (Alexandra Shipp) but dad says, “Text? Come on, what’s with you millennials? Don’t you know how to talk?”
Shaft raises the question of racial bias but never follows up. It wonders whether blackness in America comes down to skin color or culture. Maybe it decides it’s both? The screenplay sometimes threatens Islamophobia before catching itself. “I don’t like guns,” JJ continually repeats, only to witness that dad’s gunplay is the only way.
The lessons of Shaft? Maybe it’s saying that family is important, that parents and children should tolerate each other’s differences? Or maybe it’s silly trying to tease much meaning from this brisk combo of comedy and mayhem. Shaft is a platform for the performances by its lead actors—especially Jackson and Usher but also Hall. And yes, the original John Shaft, Richard Roundtree, emerges in the final scenes to prove that 70-somethings can teach sensitive millennials how to kick ass.
