Line #26 Film/Shaft2000


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0dd63765328d158d568d1fde22cadf50.jpg]]
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3	''Shaft'' is a 2000 {{sequel}} and {{revival}} of the 1971 film ''Film/{{Shaft}}'' directed by Creator/JohnSingleton.
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5	Creator/SamuelLJackson stars as John Shaft II, a nephew of the original John Shaft (Creator/RichardRoundtree, coming back in a [[TheCameo cameo]]), who works for the NYPD. Creator/ChristianBale appears as the villain, Walter Wade Jr.
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7	Jackson, along with Roundtree, returned in 2019's ''Film/{{Shaft\|2019}}''.
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9	!!This film provides examples of:
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11	* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:We never find out if Ms. Palmieri's testimony would have actually done anything to put Wade in jail, because Trey's mom (fed up with Wade evading justice repeatedly) just blows him away at the film's closure before they can even bring him into the courthouse.]]
12	* BailEqualsFreedom: Averted, which is surprising considering how fast and loose they are with the law in the rest of the movie. When Walter Wade Jr. jumps (no pun intended) bail by flying to Switzerland, he is immediately arrested the moment he sets foot back on American soil. Of course, he ends up getting released on bail by the judge ''again'' (highly unlikely in RealLife, given that he's ''proven'' himself a flight risk), making the whole exercise pointless, except as an example of what an entitled {{Jerkass}} the character is. His lawyer argues that taking away his passport is enough to eliminate him as a flight risk. The judge agrees... cue Wade calling Shaft from Switzerland to make fun of him. It's made blatantly clear that [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections Wade's father is a very influential man]], and the judge is making all the wrong calls either because he's in the father's pocket or someone higher up is. [[spoiler: To ensure it won't happen again, the victim's mother shoots Wade to death on the courthouse steps before he can even be tried]].
13	* BigBrotherInstinct: Dianne's two burly brothers want to keep Shaft from making her a witness and putting her in danger. They also fight Peoples Hernandez and his goons.
14	* BigNo: Peoples, immediately after his brother is shot and Walter Wade Jr., right before [[spoiler:the victim's mother shoots him.]]
15	* ChekhovsGun: Diane Palmieri's ID card. Wade steals it from her, threatening to kill her if she talks about his crime. Shaft finds it on his person, stained with the victim's blood, like his hands and her face (he grabbed her jaw during the threat.) Later, after Wade makes bail for a second time, Shaft openly reveals he has it, wiping the [[SmugSmiler smug grin]] from his face instantaneously.
16	%%* ClusterFBomb
17	* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Jackson's Shaft to Roundtree's. Shaft Jr is a cop (a CowboyCop, but a cop nonetheless) and far more action-oriented than Shaft, an anti-authoritarian PI who tended to sweet-talk information out of someone where possible, and was [[ThePornomancer far more successful with women.]]
18	* CowboyCop: Jackson's Shaft, who when requested to turn in his badge does so by throwing it like a shuriken, causing it to embed itself in the wall next to a judge's head. Awesome? Very much so.
19	* DirtyCop: Two of them.
20	* DragonInChief: Peoples Hernandez fulfills this role to Wade Jr. However, he eventually becomes a DragonWithAnAgenda after Shaft unwittingly kills his brother in a gunfight halfway through the movie, getting into a fight with Wade Jr. and stabbing him in the hand in the process, showcasing that at least physically-wise he's EvilerThanThou.
21	* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Walter Wade Jr. is a racist SmugSnake, but he is angry when he sees that his dad gave his new TrophyWife Walter's mother's jewelry.
22	* FakeShemp: Creator/SamuelLJackson was unavailable to shoot the sex scene in the opening credits sequence as he was filming ''Film/TheCavemansValentine''. A body double was used to film the scene.
23	* GunsAkimbo: Shaft, played by Creator/SamuelLJackson, is shown wielding two guns in a shootout.
24	* TheKlan: A black man named Trey was dining in a mainly "upper class" restaurant and was racially harassed by a Jerkass white diner named Wade. After ignoring the first few public insults, Trey walks over to Wade's table, cuts two holes in his cloth napkin, and puts it on top of Wade's head, where it resembles a KKK hood, to the laughter of some of the onlookers including [[ActuallyPrettyFunny his friends]]. Wade responds to this by [[DisproportionateRetribution beating Trey's head in with a metal pole]], setting off the plot.
25	* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Subverted. In the final showdown, it looks like Shaft and Peoples are about to engage in a one on one fight, but then Peoples pulls a hidden gun, forcing Shaft to shoot and kill him.
26	* MamaBear: [[spoiler:Trey's (Wade's victim) mother. She wishes justice by any means possible, and when Wade has already shown himself to be rich and influential enough to post bail twice (even after proving himself to be a flight risk) and evade justice for years, she decides that he will ''not'' escape a third time, and shoots him before he enters the courthouse for his third hearing.]]
27	* NobleBigotWithABadge: Detective Lugger annoys Shaft by calling black criminals "cornbread" and displaying other politically incorrect behavior, and they almost come to blows. However, he's also an honest cop, unlike two of his more seemingly decent colleagues, and helps Shaft steal the money Walter Wade Jr. is paying his hit team with in an effort to save the witnesses's lives and turn the villains against each other, with he and Shaft parting with a VitriolicBestBuds exchange.
28	--> '''Shaft:''' Hey, you still a motherfucking cracker. You know that, right?
29	--> '''Luger:''' Ah, fuck you, too, cornbread.
30	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Walter Wade Jr. (played by Creator/ChristianBale) is a white supremacist who harasses a black man at a restaurant, and later kills him because the guy successfully dissed him.
31	* RemakeCameo: Creator/RichardRoundtree returns as the original John Shaft, the chess player addressed as "Mr P" is Creator/GordonParks, the director of ''Shaft'' and ''Shaft's Big Score''. Music/IsaacHayes also makes an uncredited cameo.
32	* {{Revival}}: An attempt to revive the ''Shaft'' series/character with Jackson as the new lead, rather than a remake or reboot.
33	* ShaggyDogStory: Shaft spends the whole movie trying to get a murderer put in prison... [[spoiler:and then the victim's mother shoots the murderer anyways, rendering Shaft's efforts and pretty much the whole movie pointless. Though Shaft doesn't seem to mind anyway.]]
34	* SmugSnake: BigBad Walter Wade Jr. is this for a good chunk of his screen time, practically bragging about murdering a black man in cold blood. From his initial arrest all the way through his second bail hearing, he seems confident he'll get away with it, even shooting Shaft an arrogant grin while they leave the courthouse... until Shaft reveals his trump card- the ID of eyewitness Diane Palmieri.
35	* SpinOffspring: Samuel L. Jackson as the [[{{Nephewism}} nephew]] of the original Shaft, played by Creator/RichardRoundtree in a supporting role. Apparently he passed his skills down to him as he's just as badass.[[note]]At least until the 2019 sequel reveals that Roundtree's Shaft is [[RetCon actually]] the ''father'' of Jackson's Shaft, but for some strange unspecified reason, he was only pretending to be his uncle in this film. In hindsight, Jackson's Shaft appears to be okay with it in this film as he happily calls him "Uncle J" upon their first onscreen interaction, but in the 2019 film, the implied ParentalAbandonment is a factor in why they don't have the best relationship. There, Jackson's Shaft retorts that his father is the worst there is after his own son says that ''he'' is the worst father ever.[[/note]]
36	* TakeThisJobAndShoveIt: Shaft makes this point non-verbally by tossing his badge into a wall just over a judge's head.
37	* VigilanteExecution: [[spoiler:How Wade dies. MamaBear at work.]]
38	* WorthIt: [[spoiler: The victim's mother will likely be taken to jail for murder. But when said murder's victim is the smug bastard who killed your son and played the broken and corrupt judicial system like a fiddle, can you blame the lady?]]

Context Film / Shaft2000