Movie Review: Shaft (1971)

Shaft may very well be one of the coolest movies ever made, and that’s almost completely because John Shaft is one of the coolest characters ever. It also helps that New York was so disgusting back then. It really adds to the story.

Richard Roundtree is fantastic, and he brings a lot of humanity and coolness to his character, and to the movie. The story isn’t great. The little action we do have isn’t that great.

But it’s incredibly entertaining, still. This is one of the few blaxploitation movies to really feel like “exploitation” to me, and it’s not in the story or the content so much as just the background of 1971 New York and how gross and disgusting it is. I love it.

Rating: 7/10