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John
Shaft's back in town and he's some mean cat,
brother.
Mention Isaac
Hayes and that immortal
"Shaft" theme
fills your head with images of flares and streetwise uptown
cool quicker than you can say Richard
Roundtree. Actually, it's hard to
say Richard
Roundtree without it sounding like a
major chocolate outfit, but who gives a shit, baby? John
Shaft's back in town and he's some mean cat, brother.
Actually, he's Shaft's nephew and he's played by
Samuel L
Jackson, who looks as sleek and
ready to rumble in a long black leather coat as his dear old
uncle did twenty-nine summers ago.
This kind
of brutality isn't what they teach you in Sunday
school
So what've the dude and his nephew been
doing since 1971? They've been watching
Dirty Harry
movies &endash; all of 'em. See how
Shaft Jr
deals with a street kid who's been bullying the son of one
of his ladies. This kind of brutality isn't what they teach
you in Sunday school-no way.
....starts
off just like any old Kojak episode
Co-written and directed by
John
Singleton of
Boyz N the
Hood megafame, the new
Shaft (18)
starts off just like any old Kojak
episode, with our hero tackling a
murder with racial overtones. The chief suspect is Walter
Wade (Christian
Bale), son of a disgustingly wealthy
property developer. There's a witness, a terrified barmaid
(Toni
Collette) with a splash of blood on
her cheek. She disappears in the flick of Shaft's black
Armani duster. He's none too pleased, but he has the
contacts and he has the staying power to sort out this
little problem and anything else The Big Apple throws his
way.
The guy's
almost pure evil......
The plot's an excuse to see
Jackson flex
his pecs like his legendary predecessor, who's on hand to
offer advice as
Jr tangles
with one mean sonofabitch Dominican drug lord, Peoples
Hernandez (Jeffrey
Wright, in a superb performance
which steals the film). The guy's almost pure evil, but
there's a hint that he's trapped by greed and materialism
and the merest pinch of sympathy for the character.
Shaft
does it in full view....
Shaft mark
two is as much a charmer with the ladies as the old man was,
and he throws away his badge with even more of a flourish
than Harry
Callahan did in
San
Francisco.
Shaft embeds his shield in the
immaculate oak panelling next to a judge's ear.
Dirty Harry
threw his badge into a stinking
quarry pit, in private. Shaft does it in full view and takes
on the establishment as much as the
criminals.
Back to the
top
Remember
Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels?
Remember Lock, Stock
and 2 Smoking Barrels? If not, you
should have your knuckles crunched with a pistol butt. The
brains behind one of the Brit film industry's biggest and
most violent hits was Guy
Ritchie, now "Mr" Madonna and the
writer/director of the follow-up.
If you liked Lock,
Stock, then
Snatch (18)
is just for you. More of a remake than a sequel, and full of
flashy, commercial-style cutting, it's briskly entertaining,
packed with snappy, over-the-top dialogue and the craziest
bunch of underworld characters since, well, Lock,
StockŠ
....a
bigger than average diamond....
Diamond thief Franky Four Fingers
(Benicio del
Toro) is doing a routine courier job
for his boss Ari (Dennis
Farina). In London en route to New
York to deliver a bigger than average diamond, he can't
resist a bet on an illegal boxing match. Of course, he
doesn't suspect Boris "The Blade" has set him up. Not until
he's waylaid at the bookies by a couple of pawnshop owners
and their appallingly overweight getaway driver, he
doesn'tŠ
Ari's not too happy to hear of Franky's
little problem, so he pops over to the Smoke to hire local
legend "Bullet Tooth" Tony (Vinnie
Jones) to find both the courier and
the not especially tiny rock.
...more
twists than a lorryload of Moldavian
corkscrews...
The plot has more twists than a lorryload of
Moldavian corkscrews and a mix of US and British acting
talent to take your breath away.
Farina, so
brilliant in Get
Shorty, takes the American honours,
with the homegrown players swept off the board by
Alan Ford,
who plays Bricktop, the utterly ruthless boxing promoter and
pig farm owner whose novice fighter is pounded flat by Irish
gypsy Mickey O'Neill (Brad
Pitt, doing, faultlessly, a weird
Romany accent).
.....go
see Ritchie's mad, balls-out movie.
Don't worry about the plot. Just enjoy the
mayhem as spotless Jaguars are smashed to scrap and
bareknuckle fights pulp faces even harder than
DeNiro/La
Motta did in Raging Bull. Oh, and
did you ever wonder how to get rid of those awkward dead
bodies? Bricktop has the answer. First, find yourself a yard
full of hungry pigs. For the full spec, go see Ritchie's
mad, balls-out movie.
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