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Shaft

1971

Gordon Parks

Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Gwenn Mitchell ...

6.0

1,490

Action. Thriller John Shaft is the ultimate in suave black detectives. He first finds himself up against Bumpy, the leader of the Black crime mob, then against Black nationals, and finally working with both against the White Mafia who are trying to blackmail Bumpy by kidnapping his daughter.

	Author	Review
United States	J.R. Jones Chicago Reader	"This suffers from some sluggish dialogue scenes, but the movie comes to vibrant life whenever director Gordon Parks hits the streets of New York."	NEU
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"[Its strength] is his willingness to let his hero fully inhabit the private-eye genre (...) The weakness of 'Shaft,' I suspect, is that Parks is not very eager to inhabit that world along with his hero (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Craig Fisher The Hollywood Reporter	"'Shaft' is not a good movie (...) Parks doesn't reveal any feeling for his material (...) It doesn't build any rhythms (...) and it doesn't begin to explore the interest and the uniqueness of its setting"	NEG
United States	Vincent Canby The New York Times	"'Shaft' is not a great film, but it's very entertaining"	NEU
United Kingdom	Michael Thomson BBC	"A pretty slim film covered in attractive dialogue (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU

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