Shaft

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.

A good, gutsy crime yarn in the 'forties style.

If Shaft were indeed a hard-hitting, fast-paced, action-packed detective thriller, as it was meant to be, then it would be an acceptable entertainment. But it isn't.

A blaxploitation pic that's never quite as cool as its theme song.

Excellent cast, headed by newcomer Richard Roundtree, may shock some audiences with heavy dose of candid dialog and situation.

Forty years of gumshoe noir collided with black power in this 1971 action classic, the most popular of the blaxploitation pictures.

One of the best of all blaxploitation flicks.

Oozing masculinity with his streetwise manner towards suspects, Shaft is a triumph...

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