Ìý User Rating 
From now on, Samuel L Jackson is Shaft. This means not only that he has perfected the kind of role with which he will be identified for evermore but that he places Richard Roundtree's Shaft (certainly effective in 1971) firmly in the shade. Jackson has so much more cool, swagger, authority and menace that he makes Roundtree look like a student who is trying to ape the master. Roundtree, by the way, is cast in the new film as Shaft's uncle and, to prove that he still creates a buzz in the opposite sex, he leaves a club with two women. This is one of the carefully timed moments of light relief.
Even though the first "Shaft" - partly because it was the first successful blaxploitation picture - had a deserved impact on its release, it was good only because of Roundtree and its hip, sassy street-lingo which many remember to this day. It was, however, in terms of its plotting pretty loose and lazy and went round in circles more than once. The new "Shaft", by comparison, is the business: a tightly sprung, comin'-at-ya street thriller which has no room for flab but still finds space for hipness. Pumped into overdrive with the still-exhilarating Isaac Hayes theme, the story follows a Shaft who looks as if he owns New York and all its people, including Walter Wade, a snotty white rich kid who bludgeons a black guy to death for kicks. Wealth enables him to skip free but, two years later, Shaft is waiting and, if he can squash corrupt cops underfoot, he can deal with a privileged killer.
Walter Wade is yet another triumph for Christian Bale, who humanises him by letting his insecurity seep through the ice-cold arrogance, but "Shaft" is finally Jackson's. He is such a good, soul-searching actor that he never lets "Shaft" just glide by on star charisma alone. One of the best character-based thrillers this year.
