Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Falconeer Richard Roundtree reprises his role as John Shaft, in this very respectable sequel to one of the greatest urban crime thrillers ever. The story is actually nothing new or spectacular; it's a standard 'cops go up against the mafia' story. But the script isn't really the draw here. It's the 70's; the clothes, the cars, the music, the incomparable "coolness" that made the first film so great. This one succeeds largely because they didn't stray from the formula that made the original a success. We have the same director, the same writers, and the same actors reprising their memorable roles. Director Gordon Parks makes full use of the super-wide lens; 1970's New York City looks absolutely magnificent in the 2:35 aspect ratio, as do the action packed, and blood drenched shoot-outs, and especially in the big finale. Featuring a classic shootout in a cemetery, followed by a manic car chase on the Cross Bronx Expressway, complete with pursuit by helicopter!. There's nothing more awesome than a 70's car chase sequence , and the action here is handled superbly. In fact this is one polished, sleek production, and it's pretty obvious that it had a larger budget than the first one. Sometimes that actually hurts a sequel, when it's more flashy than it's predecessor, but this one doesn't suffer that fate. Obviously a lot of the budget went towards the action effects. Those bloody gun shot wounds were among the most realistic I have ever seen. "Shaft's Big Score" is a must-see for fans of the original, and of 70's crime films in general. John Shaft is a truly iconic movie character, and it's a pleasure to see him on screen again, kicking bad guy ass and cleaning up the streets of New York. After seeing this one I'm really looking forward to "Shaft In Africa."

raysond "SHAFT'S BIG SCORE"-(MGM,1972)-Reunited the same team that had put together the box-office smash,Oscar winner for Issac Hayes-Best Musical Score,"Shaft",worked on this sequel which came during the summer of 1972 and the results were another power packed installment that delivered on the first one,this time around with a lot more action-packed scenes and again the presence of its star,Richard Roundtree,together with the direction of Gordon Parks,the script by Ernest Tidyman,based on his novel,and Produced by Sterling Silliphant and Roger Lewis. The only thing that was lacklustering and kinda of disappointing with the musical score that was missing from the great Issac Hayes,who composed a few of the songs from this film. With some of the performances that are completely contrived,this is still a well-paced,fast action thriller and finely tuner actioner that involves our hero John Shaft going up against the mob--again and this time the story involves a missing loot,and a friend of Shaft's turning up dead leading to Shaft to go after the missing loot and taking on the mob which features a chase through not only the streets of Brooklyn and Harlem but through Brooklyn Harbor involving cars,boats,and helicopters. Look out for Gangster Moses Gunn,who was in the first installment is also around to give our hero some difficulty and add chaos to the problems. Rated R. Running Time of 107 minutes. ***1/2 stars."SHAFT IN AFRICA"-(MGM,1973)-Would be the final installment in the SHAFT series-just before Richard Roundtree would move on toward television land as the star of a short-lived series that premiered on television that same year. This time around Sterling Silliphant would penned the script based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman,and produced by Roger Lewis,and this time around,Gordon Parks takes leave of the SHAFT series and it is under the direction of John Guillerman(who would strike gold the next year along with Sterling Silliphant for the Irwin Allen disaster epic "The Towering Inferno")with music provided by Johnny Pate and songs by Motown legends The Four Tops. This one lack badly due to the absence of Parks,and Tidyman behind the wheel. The heart of this project was a disappointment from the start of this film since some of the scenes are very sluggish and there nothing more than flashy entertainment that runs a length time of 112 minutes. The story has detective John Shaft leaves the ghetto to uncover a slave smuggling ring in Africa. From there he discovers that men and women of the Ivory Coast are being carried-off to France as cheap and illegal labor. Of course,Shaft smashes the slave ring and even ends up with a beautiful maiden(Vonetta McGee)and takes out the main villain(Frank Finlay)behind the organization. Very tiredsome film throughout since this was filmed in locations throughout parts of the Ivory Coast and Ghana in West Africa and France. Rated R. Running Time of 126 minutes. ** and 1/2 stars

Alice Liddel The enforced jollity of that exclamation mark should be a warning. 'Shaft's Big Score!', if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, must be the best 'bad' movie ever made. It is bad: supposedly an action film, direction, plot and action fell asleep as often as I did. But there is an intelligence and skill here unthinkable in, say, 'Police Academy IV'. If Shaft is Bond, than 'Shaft's Big Score' is an anti-Bond film, subjecting the hero to structuralist scrutiny, exposing his weaknesses and limitations; in one sex scene, site of his virile power, he dissolves into abstraction, his body disappearing from the place where it is most needed. A kind of ghost story, the funeral sequence is amazing, as a coffin is lowered down, but the camera rises and points at Shaft. This supernatural frisson is betrayed by the drive towards a risible helicopter climax.

The_Movie_Cat It's a shame to see the Shaft series turning to self-parody so early in it's run, but after the low-key and surprisingly effective original this first sequel sees elements of mockery creeping into the format. Shaft, he of maroon leather trenchcoat and green rollneck, is now the ultimate supersleuth; a man who screws better than any other man, a man who fights better than any other man (he does get beaten in this film, but it takes three men to do it); a man who outwits any other man; a man who can outrun a helicopter and dodge machine-gun fire. This is a Shaft who does his detective work by hiding in coffins and posing as a window cleaner. And while he gets to sleep with the black girlfriend of one of the gangland bosses he opposes, he doesn't get to do the same to the white girlfriend of another criminal. Now that would have been groundbreaking.There's a moment early on where a gangland boss spends several moments playing a classical piece on an clarinet. The sequence runs for too long, not just for the film's style, but also the pacing. Which, in some incongruous kind of way, makes it a work of unique genius. Imagine Woody Allen playing a slow jazz number in the middle of "Boyz n the Hood" and you'll get the idea. Truly bizarre.The rest of the film's opening is like this: scenes are overlong and flabby, not possessing the required focus and dramatic effect. In fact, it's only until the last forty minutes or so that the movie really gets going. It's nice to see Tee-Hee from "Live and Let Die" (Julius W.Harris) as a police captain, though he fails to connect with Roundtree in the same way that Laurence Pressman did in the original.An increased budget is also evident: Shaft ends the film bedecked in black leather like a '68 Elvis comeback special, toting a machine-gun (as Prince would say). From hereon follows an increasingly silly chase sequence that sees a red Chevy/helicopter chase, then a speedboat/helicopter chase, and finally a Shaft/helicopter chase. Shaft takes on both chopper and rival car while on foot, limping from a bruised leg.Worst bit? Isaac Hayes, for some reason demoted in favour of the lesser O.C. Smith, only getting one mid-film song. Dreary and not of the high standard of Shaft's score (especially Soulsville), it drones on over a sex scene, shown through those curious 70s-style corrugated mirrors. The shot blends and obscures, twisting over the distorted reflections, producing in the viewer a dizzy sensation and making you feel sick.Best bit? A genteel pensioner, when spoken to rudely by Willy (Drew Bundini Brown), responding: "You don't talk to an old lady that way – where's your f****** manners, anyway?"If Big Score! lacks the pace and structure of it's former, then it is still an entertaining, if far-fetched, vehicle. Though its seeming need to create a black James Bond not through equality or empowerment, but via send-up, is worrying.