“Shaft” is a black exploitation film about a private detective. “Shaft” is a film that has some great music and a bit of style but unfortunately, it’s not enough to help win me over. It should be funnier, it should be slicker and it should be more entertaining.

In this film, we follow a tough private detective by the name of John Shaft (Richard Roundtree “Se7en”). Shaft is the black equivalent of a combination of Sam Spade from “The Maltese Falcon” and Harry Callaghan from “Dirty Harry” as he tries to rescue a gangster’s daughter. Shaft spends a great deal of his time just wandering around the streets. It may look somewhat stylish but it isn’t the most exciting stuff to watch when there is supposed to be a story involving gangsters and kidnapping.

Richard Roundtree is pretty entertaining as Shaft; I certainly like the confidence he shows. However, I would say that Shaft is far from being the most exciting detective onscreen; I prefer Sam Spade and Harry Callaghan. The other characters aren’t particularly interesting and nobody seems terribly enthusiastic. Actors walk in front of the camera, look very bored and then leave. Roundtree is definitely the only giving anything close to a good performance.

I like the music in “Shaft” a lot. The main theme is sung by Isaac Hayes and it’s great. I also like Roundtree’s performance despite the character not being anything too special. The film relies too heavily on the sales point of being just a black private detective film. I was disappointed by this film because it shows promise from time to time but it seems as if not enough energy went into it and certainly not enough ambition. I hear some of the sequels are a little more ambitious so maybe I’ll check them out at some point.