Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Richard Roundtree was great and Shaft as a character was absolutely amazing, everything else from the plot which was thin and performances by the supporting cast was a bit iffy. The pacing was also pretty slow and despite only being 100 minutes, felt a bit longer. Still, a good opening into the franchise. 3.5/5
Richard Rowntree exudes loads of charisma here as he takes on the role of the shrewd Harlem private investigator Shaft who finds himself embroiled in some fairly brutal New York politics. Hes drafted in by local gangster Bumpy (Moses Gunn) when this mans daughter is kidnapped. He doesnt know by whom or why - there are no ransom demands nor many breadcrumbs to follow, but there are plenty of suspects. Initially he suspects that it might be the Black Power movement but after some plausible, if double-edged, tip-offs begins to suspect that some other hustlers are planning on bumping off his employer and muscling in on the lucrative rackets of the city. Shaft knows full well that the truth is being drip-fed to him, and that both Bumpy and polic...