Rotten Tomatoes Logo Do you want to see ‘Shaft’?

Shaft (2000)

tomatometer

68

Average Rating: 6.1/10
Reviews Counted: 110
Fresh: 75 | Rotten: 35

With a charismatic lead, this new Shaft knows how to push the right buttons.

72

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 25
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 7

With a charismatic lead, this new Shaft knows how to push the right buttons.

audience

45

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 62,057

My Rating

Movie Info

This action drama puts a new spin on Shaft, one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the namesake nephew of the legendary private eye (Richard Roundtree), is a street-smart police detective who with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams) has been assigned to a racially motivated murder case, in which a black college student was killed in front of a restaurant by Walter Williams Jr. (Christian Bale), the sociopathic son of a New York construction

Dec 12, 2000

Paramount Pictures

Cast

All Critics (136) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (35) | DVD (18)

Sleek, urgent, knowing, gleefully profane and above all ultra-cool, Shaft blows into the summer movie season like a breath of fresh air.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A guilty pleasure for adults and older teens.

December 28, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

Slim pickings are offered in terms of supplements, but some of these pickings offer a tad more substance than usual.

October 14, 2007 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment
TheMovieReport.com

Shaft quickly splits into two different movies, and only one of them fully succeeds.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

The primary focus of the film, and the real reason we're here, is to watch Samuel Jackson sink his teeth into the Shaft's trash-talking dialogue.

December 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Looking Closer | Comment
Looking Closer

Samuel L. Jackson, who broke out of the pack in Pulp Fiction, fits the role and his leather Armani coat as though it's tailor-made. He's the man, and we can dig it.

June 28, 2004 Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Shaft

Shaft is an unimpressive action film that is loosely based on the classic of the same name. I found it quite bad. Shaft didn't thrill me, and frankly, I was disappointed. I felt that the film could have been much better, and that it didn't anything to really entertain you. The thing is, Shaft has a poorly constructed

November 3, 2011
TheDudeLebowski65
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

Renegade tough guy cop John Shaft sets his sights on an over-privileged racist who murdered an innocent man and skipped bail using his father's influence. The hardest thing to swallow about this film is a bald Shaft, and to be honest it seems like a bit of a cheek to use the name and Isaac Hayes' classic theme tune for

April 29, 2007
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

    1. John Shaft: What's my name?
    2. lounge customer: I don't know.
    3. John Shaft: John Shaft!
    4. lounge customer: What?
    5. John Shaft: John Shaft! Say it!
    6. lounge customer: John Shaft!
    – Submitted by Zbigniew Z (43 days ago)

Latest News for Shaft

December 8, 2005:
Singleton to Drive Paramount's "Convoy"
The Hollywood Reporter brings news of director John Singleton's next project, an auto-intensive...

August 11, 2005:
Critical Consensus: Brotherly Love, A Not So Great ?Raid,? A Skeletal ?Key,? and Schneider?s Latest
This week at the movies gives us four brothers with vigilante justice on their minds, a woman who...

What's Hot On RT

Luis Guzman
Luis Guzman

What are his 10 best movies ever?

<em>Amazing Spider-Man</em>
Amazing Spider-Man

See the all-new action-packed trailer!

The Avengers!
The Avengers!

Five new Marvelous pictures

Total Recall
Total Recall

Unconventional Superheroes

Top Movie Quizzes

LEGO Mania: 2011 Best Picture Nominees
by natalie - 18,535 taken
created 12 months ago
How Much Do You Know About Leonardo DiCaprio?
by natalie - 44,351 taken
created 15 months ago
Pixar Movies!
by jdikwlzviv - 27,106 taken
created 15 months ago
The Wizards of Harry Potter
by jdikwlzviv - 27,610 taken
created 15 months ago

Foreign Titles

  • Shaft (2000) (UK)
  • Shaft (2000) (CA)
Help | About | Jobs | Newsletter | Critics Submission | API | Licensing | Blog | Developers | Mobile