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Starring
Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette, Christian Bale, Vanessa Williams, Jeffrey Wright

Director
John Singleton

Year
2000

Genre
Action

Synopsis
With a new spin on one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s this action drama stars Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft, the namesake nephew of Richard Roundtree's legendary private eye.

He's a street-smart police detective who, with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams), has been assigned to a racially motivated murder case in which a black college student was killed in front of a restaurant by Walter Williams Jr. (Christian Bale), the sociopathic son of a tycoon. Toni Collette stars as Diane Palmieri, a waitress who saw the murder but doesn't want to talk to the police. When Shaft and Carmen find Diane, they discover she had a good reason for being on the run for the two years.

TRIVIA:
Isaac Hayes, the composer of the Shaft theme song, Gordon Parks, the director of the original Shaft (1971), and John Singleton, director of this version, all have cameos; Samuel L. Jackson says the line, "This is some repugnant shit," which he first said in Pulp Fiction (1994) and again in Jackie Brown (1997); Lamont wears an earring with the initials "LT". These are the initials of the actor who portrayed him, former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

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