Review of Shafted (2000) by Edward D — 13 Nov 2010

80% liked this? Holy crap! Well, if you liked this Black Dynamite will blow your mind with Awesomeness! Some people laughed at this? Well, I think I yelled at this. Why?

1. If a character is inept, they better be a badass at something to compensate. i.e. the show "Monk", the movie "Cripple Masters", "Drunken Master". If the character never proves successful at anything why follow him? Probably the hope. That's why I continued watching.

2. A "Badass" is a running gimmick and cliche in the blaxploitation genre. Even though it is cliche, it is how the character physically and verbally does it. Good Blaxploitation:

A. Dolemite, sure his fighting was sped-up and overdubbed, but his attitude, lines of dialogue, and the cast treated him as a person you don't mess with.

B. Superfly, Ron O' Neal's intensity is so great in this film, it's almost like a seductive vampire.

C. Fred Williamson, Fricken Phenomenal in "Black Caesar". Why? The combination of his charisma, James Brown's Music, and the evolution of Williamson's character is very compelling.

D. Pam Grier, She is tough, seductive, loyal, caring, and still a woman you should never get on her bad side. Her believability for each role she is in is amazing.

3. The main character in this movie "Shafted", it's similar to the annoyance of Jar Jar Binks, except I. Binks helped out in the end and II. didn't revolve around Binks the whole time.

4. I'm all for independent, obscure, exploitation films, but this whole concept seem very amateurish. I'm still shocked after finishing a film school he made this. If this film was made with love, I would be shocked because the attempt is so lazy it looked like he never went to film school aka no refinement of the creator's ideas.

Ironically, I do own this, hey it was cheap. Well from analyzing it, I could learn what not to do.