Shaft

John Singleton clearly reveres the heyday of '70s action pictures, their low-key car chases, muddy-looking location cinematography and restrained gunfights. The most surprising thing about his sequel/reworking of pioneering blaxploitation picture SHAFT is how true to the '70s it is, from the funk-heavy soundtrack to the restrained mayhem. The question is whether it can hold the attention of today's adrenaline junkies, who weren't born when SHAFT opened and have no sentimental attachment to the "black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks:" It's a bad sign when audience enthusiasm peaks during the credits sequence. NYC cop John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson)...