Shaft's Big Score is the first sequel to the super-hip 1971 original. When a pal of detective John Shaft is murdered in a bombing (and $250,000 goes missing), New York's coolest private eye finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between black and white gangsters over the numbers racket in Queens. Directed by Gordon Parks (who does a brief cameo as a croupier in an illegal casino) and written by Ernest Tidyman (both of whom made the original Shaft), this film lacks the pacing of its progenitor. Roundtree is at his best when he's questioning a woman he's... just met about a suspect, while at the same time beguiling her into the sack (ah, those lazy, crazy days of the sexual revolution). The finale--a shootout in a cemetery, followed by a car-boat-helicopter chase through Queens and up the Harlem River--is preposterously drawn out: Shaft, impervious to machine-gun fire, winds up tripping, spraining his ankle and limping while running from the chopper; two shots later, he's sprinting like a halfback. Look for late Muhammad Ali-trainer Drew Bundini Brown as a wisecracking mobster. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com [show more]
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