My Review of "Shaft (2019)"

Quite honestly, I was looking forward to seeing Shaft (2019) in theaters but I never got the chance. The trailers did a good job in getting me hyped up over it. The problem was that it kind of bombed in the box office so it didn't stay long in theaters and it didn't get good reviews. Still I thought it looked like an interesting title. It's recently been added to the Crave list of movies to stream and I dived in. I'm really happy that I did too.

Shaft is franchise that has lasted for a long time. It spans three generations with Richard Roundtree playing the original Shaft. Then it was Samuel L.Jackson as the second shaft. Now we have Jessie T. Usher as the newest Shaft. All three generations of Shaft have a role in this movie. I thought that was a nice touch.

This movie starts off with a nice montage to explain the story of the new John Shaft. We call him JJ for John Junior. It basically continues with the story that Samuel L. Jackson left off last time he played Shaft. This time he had a woman and a child. He gets into a firefight in the middle of the city and Maya, played by Regina King, has had enough. She is not going to jeopardize their son's life in this atmosphere.

She picks up and leaves with JJ. They have a life and JJ grows up to be a different person than John would ever have expected. He's good with computers and he's sensitive to social issues. He's polite and basically everything that John is not. Throughout the years John has given JJ birthday and Christmas presents that were obscenely inappropriate.

Now JJ is a system analyst for the FBI. He gets no respect but he's probably the best analyst out there. There's trouble with one of his childhood friends that end up in death. JJ doesn't believe that his friend's death was simply an accident. He does some research and notices some weird inaccuracies. When he goes to investigate further he realizes he doesn't have the street smarts to get the information that he needs.

Of course he goes to his dad for help. That's when everything starts to get bigger and better. Samuel L. Jackson is his usual self and that's what's great about this movie. It's a nice mix of old with new. You see John's reaction to this generation of investigators and it's pretty funny because John seems like a guy stuck in time.

It's a pretty run of the mill crime buddy film but with son and father as a new twist. They make a lot of jokes at the expense of JJ but really I think JJ was a great character because it's not like he can't handle himself. There are a few things about him that start to get exposed and it's fun to see how his character starts to become more than meets the eye.

The comedy works well with the action and the chemistry between JJ and John work very well. The cohesiveness of the cast is actually really great.I think that this helped elevate the movie. It is very much a movie that is helped by the charisma of its stars because really the story isn't terribly strong.

I'm actually not sure why this was panned so much by critics. I had a blast watching this movie. I guess there is a lot of predictability in this movie but that goes without saying with the type of movie it is. People that are fans of this genre will not complain.

Overall, I had a really good time watching this movie and I think that it is a greatly underestimated movie. I had a smile on my face throughout the movie and I think you will too. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. I will be recommending this movie to some of my friends that are into buddy crime movies.