One of two films that kicked off the blaxploitation era of the '70s (along with SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG), SHAFT is based on a great forgotten Ernest Tidyman crime novel of the same name, about a bad private eye named John Shaft who gets hired by a Harlem drug kingpin to find his missing daughter. The movie is great but the book is even better; if you want to read something as gritty and real as a James Ellroy or George Pelecanos novel, you really should try to find the book.

Of course, the movie’s an excellent substitute, particularly because Richard Roundtree makes an incredible Shaft. Styling in some awesome '70s outfits, the guy looks cool and tough; he’s every bit the black version of James Bond, only Shaft’s a little cooler, cause he doesn’t take orders from some one-letter-for-a-name boss. He works for himself and does just fine thank you, and he isn’t afraid of anybody. “Where the hell do you think you’re going Shaft?” a cop asks him early in the movie. “To get laid! Where the hell you going?:” he laughs in his face. C’mon -- what’s cooler than that?

If you’ve never seen SHAFT you probably know it for the Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes, and the DVD has some great footage of director Gordon Parks explaining to Hayes how he wants that classic theme to sound. “That should be a driving, savage beat,” he says, “so we’re right with him all the time.” Hayes got the idea perfectly. What’s brilliant about that opening sequence where the theme accompanies Shaft on his morning walk to work is that we don’t see Shaft do any of this stuff the song says, but just by hearing this amazing song tell us about him, we’ve instantly got a sense of his character. “Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?” “SHAFT!” “Right on!” The best is that it explains he’s a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman, and then Shaft flagrantly cheats on his woman throughout the movie and clearly doesn’t love her at all.

The blaxploitation genre, while a huge fiscal success in the 1970s, has mostly been earmarked as racist stereotypical cinema, and there are some strong arguments for that in some cases. But to me SHAFT can’t be racist, because SHAFT makes me want to be Shaft. I want to be that badass tough-as-nails dude, and his being black only makes him cooler. He doesn’t take crap from anyone; call him a slur, he’ll call you one right back. Shoot him, he’ll be up and jumping through apartment building windows a few hours later. All right so it’s a little far-fetched, but he’s Shaft, dammit!

SHAFT is now roughly 32 years old, and it holds up great, way better than the Samuel L. Jackson remake from a few years ago. Though I was immediately drawn to the movie for Roundtree’s definitively cool performance, the more I watch it, the more I’m genuinely touched by Shaft’s relationship with his cop buddy Lt. Vic Androzzi, played by Charles Cioffi as a good cop who knows that doing the right thing in the long run often means breaking the rules in the short. Not to mention, scenes like the one where Shaft cons a couple of hoods who are waiting to kill him by posing as a bartender are totally smooth. The 70s tendencies in it may rub some the wrong way, but there’s something very real and gritty and dangerous about the way the era plays into the story that makes the crime elements that much more powerful. Simply, he is baaaad. Can you dig it?