Shaft

Name: Shaft
Released: 1971-7-2
Cast: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell

Shaft

R
1h 30m
1971

87%

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The mob wants Harlem back. But they're gonna get Shaft. Richard Roundtree stars as New York City private detective John Shaft. He's cool, tough and won't back down to anybody. But when the New York Mafia wants to take over the Harlem drug trade, they kidnap local crime lord Bumpy Jonas' (Moses Gunn) daughter. Now in the middle of a war between mobsters that's ready to ignite a racial tinderbox, Jonas hires the one man tough enough to get his daughter back--John Shaft.

Director:

Gordon Parks

Producer:

Joel Freeman, David Golden

Writer:

Ernest Tidyman, John D.F. Black

Cast:

Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman, Victor Arnold, Sherri Brewer, Rex Robbins

Special Features

Locked video

Soul in Cinema: Filming SHAFT on Location

Locked video

"Shaft" TV Episode - "The Killing"

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

87%

Critics Consensus: This is the man that would risk his neck for his brother, man. Can you dig it?

Reviews

Slant Magazine

Budd Wilkins

Quintessential blaxploitation that launched a thousand imitators, Gordon Parks’s Shaft is much more than a rollicking crowd-pleaser, as it’s also a snapshot of a bygone era.

There has been a slew of lesser imitations of Park’s film, but none have cut it close. Shaft has become incontestably Roundtree’s own through a performance that seems not only natural and off-the-cuff but imbued with a sense of street life...

both revolutionary black film with unprecedented imagery of a strong black protagonist and Hollywood product clearly shaped to appeal to both black and white audiences

Pop culture transcendence.

A fascinating and unique crime drama which provides a snapshot of a time and place in history.

June 23, 2022

FULL REVIEW