Shaft

A blaxploitation pic that's never quite as cool as its theme song.

The strength of Parks's movie is his willingness to let his hero fully inhabit the private-eye genre, with all of its obligatory violence, blood, obscenity, and plot gimmicks.

Samuel L shakes up a dozing movie with the slick coolness of a true star.

The most surprising thing about [this] sequel/reworking of pioneering blaxploitation picture SHAFT is how true to the '70s it is, from the funk-heavy soundtrack to the restrained mayhem.