Shaft

In many ways, Shaft is great. Everyone in it is very very cool, and the screenplay is really delightful. I love a crime film, as you know, and Shaft is a great character.

But Shaft's plot doesn't really have much to it, all told, and director Gordon Parks doesn't build tension very well, so it is never really clear when we're supposed to be afraid, when we can relax, when we ought to pay closer attention. Even the action scenes, while great on paper, don't really pop the way they ought to.

The score, by Isaac Hayes, is superb, of course. And Shaft has a gay sidekick in a bar down the street who actually says he's gay in the film. It's kind of an amazing moment. He's talking about a woman who wants to sleep with him and he says, "I told her I'm gay and she said she'd change me. It's not enough that I'm beautiful, now she wants me to play character parts!"