Rating: 
Summary: Whatever you do dont bother with the sequels
Review: This film is OK but the two sequels to this are really bad. This Shaft 1971 film is so ridiculus its almost funny. Its almost like a cartoon- the characters are stereotyped, the plot stinks, and the ending is awful.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic!
Review: This film was just before my time, but when I first saw it in the late 80's or ealry 90's, I wanted more and could not get enough! I could not believe that such ill (hot, cool) films like this were being made in the ealry 70's.
I don't want to get into the story, but this is a must have film in any collection if you like action films. The Sam Jackson Shaft was better than I thought, but it CANNOT stand up to the origianl or it's sequel(notice how sequel is singular...). They should never try to remake a classic film. I hear that they want to remake "Uptown Saturday Night" and "The Warriors!" I hope someone stops them before they get started! Come up with your OWN ideas for your time, don't bite.
This film is classic, but the only problem I have is that it was not as remastered as it could have been. No royal treatment. It does have a featurette though, somthing I had never seen before. The other problem wit this film like "Superfly," is that both films have legendary soundtracks/scores that did corssover with white audiences - so why no surround sound or at least stereo remaster? That is the least they should do. I want "Shaft" and "Superfly" special editions with at least stereo! Classic soundtracks should get the royal treatment.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best
Review: This film wasn't blaxpoitation, but it spawned blaxpoitation. Instead this film is a splendid story about private detective John Shaft who rescued the daughter of a crime boss from the mob. By using his wit and street smarts he avoids the police and reunites with a black militant group leader to achieve his goal. The movie's introduction accompanied with the lyrics from the self titled theme song captures the persona who is Shaft; "a complicated man that no one understands him but his woman". The cinematography accurately portrays New York as it was in the 1970s. The movie is a little dated, but which movie made over 30 years ago isn't.
Side note:
The soundtrack composed by Isaac Hayes is excellent. He is the first African-American to win an Oscar for Best Musical Score.
Rating:
Summary: This the BEST movie I have ever seen!
Review: This is the coolest movie I have ever seen! I have never seen a movie with so many cool lines and interesting characters. Let's just hope the remake is as good!
Rating: 
Summary: A Winner!
Review: This is the genuine original "Shaft" from 1971, with Richard Roundtree, that scored so well with inner-city (read: African-American) audiences that it spawned two sequels and created a new mini-genre, the grudgingly titled "Blaxploitation" films. As a kid living in a rural white area at the time, I missed this important and popular movie until I saw it last week in my VCR. And you know what? It's good. Shaft is a private investigator who is hired by a local crime boss to find his beautiful, vulnerable daughter, who has been kidnapped by a rival ring from New Jersey. This is no small potatoes: a major drug war could break out between Jersey and Harlem if the problem isn't resolved soon. By the way, someone goes crashing through Shaft's very high office window in his presence, so Shaft has to bargain and barter with his only sympathetic contact in the NYPD to keep from being arrested on a murder charge. Shaft has to work on his own, under cover, without most of the advantages the police enjoy. The performances in this film are wonderful. It shows how shamefully Hollywood has ignored black talent that actors the caliber of Moses Gunn didn't get steady work, and the situation is only marginally better today. The talent brings conviction to a gangster plot line that is really just an update of 1930s material, minimizing its formulaic quality and keeping it fresh. There are also sharp points made about the realities of urban black life. Example: A taxicab pauses, then zooms by well-dressed Shaft, only to stop 50 feet up the street to pick up a similarly dressed white guy. It's stuff like this that raises "Shaft" well above the movie-of-the-week level that infects so many routine and direct-to-video films. I think that time may have actually improved "Shaft." The violence is just violence. Shooting a gun is just that, not an invitation to buckets of blood. A car crash is a car crash, not a fireball. One thing the writers or producers seem a little conflicted about is the level of swearing: a character will say "[bad]" in one sentence, use the s-word in the next, then revert to "[bad]" Ditto those well-worn terms about fornication. Well, 1971 was a confusing time. For a generation raised on Joe Fridays, Shaft is quite an interesting character, a handsome leather-clad James Bond without all the high-tech gadgetry. He has a nice apartment and a loving wife, but he also keeps a sleek, tasteful bachelor pad that Hugh Hefner might envy. He must be quite the successful P.I.! I suppose this bit of fantasy was meant to serve as relief to the gritty urban drama played out on the streets. At any rate, I didn't mind it. If you're sitting on the fence about this movie, buy the tape; it's quite cheap.
Rating:
Summary: Nu Yawks Koolest Ol Skool
Review: Ushering in the era of blaxploitation films, Richard Roundtree's Shaft was a black riff on Bogart: a hip (...) as adept at shutting down black or white criminals as he is at seducing black or white women. Superfly is a drug dealer; Black Caesar, a cold-blooded gangster; but Shaft is a bad mother on the right side of the law.
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, Bad audio
Review: You know, if you're going to release this excellent trilogy on DVD, the least you could do is insure it's audio excellence. The movies are still excellent, but what a disappointment to listen to. The movie itself gets 5 stars, but this release should've been handled better.
Rating:
Summary: Shaft, you're damn right
Review: you see, that's what I'm talking about. Shaft is the s**t! the movie that started the beautiful balxploitation explosion of the seventies and paved the ways for such great films like, "dolemite" and "foxy brown." Richard Roundtree spends the duration of the film spouting off one-liners and beating up bad guys. He's Shaft and he's not afraid to show it. If you're down with the old school crime fighter Shaft, check this s**t out.
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