Shaft (1971)

The mother of the blacksplotation genera, for me this movie was clocked in an aura of retro-camp and nitchieness, but upon seeing it I find that it works well as a movie in its own right, even divorced from its historical context and place in cinema history, its just a good movie. The story is based on a detective novel by Ernest Tidyman which I find that I am now mildly interested in reading because you get a sense from the movie that there is more to the story, there are a lot of characters in the film that obviously have long history's with the character of John Shaft that are merely hinted at, and I would be curious to learn more about those. The performances throughout are fair but not polished, these are mostly amateurs, and you can further tell that the film was shot on something of a tight budget because of its lack of sets, which I think only enhances the picture in that it forces it to rely on location shooting and early 1970's New York City is just a fascinatingly gritty place to look at. Historically important and not half bad besides. ***