Shaft: The Return (2000)

The Plot of Shaft: The Return. John Shaft, the nephew of John Shaft Senior is a LA detective, who was involved in an investigation into the death of a young black man who was assaulted by Walter Wade Jr, a rich young white man. Shaft punches Wade, which results in him getting bail, and running away to Switzerland. On his return two years later Shaft arrests him, but he is bailed again and becomes involved with a drug lord, Peoples Hernandez. Shaft searches for a waitress who has witnessed the original assault, and gets info from a grass in Peoples’s gang, but he is killed. Shaft resigns from the police and goes after Wade, sometimes helped by his former partner, and abetted by a couple of renegade police detectives. Eventually Shaft and Peoples meet face to face. Who will win?

Content: There is no sex, although the titles are pretty sexy. There is drinking smoking and of course there is drug dealing. Shaft strides about in a black coat, laying down the law in one way or another. There are car chases and shoot outs, Shaft being seen as a good shot. There is a face to face between Peoples and Shaft which reveals the idiocy of having people meet for hand to hand combat after throwing their guns away. Can’t say more.

A View: This was a pretty straightforward film mostly involving the location of a witness. It was a typical Samuel Jackson outing making what seems to have been a pretty tame outing at least interesting. The project had been in various hands and the script had been rewritten a number of times finally to the satisfaction of the star, or not, and apparently never to the satisfaction of the producer. So a movie which you can have on while doing something else.

Fun Fact: Jackson, and the writer disagreed as to how the action scenes should be filmed, to the point that the director suggested letting the scenes be shot twice, reflecting the views of each of the protagonists.