LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SHAFT’S BIG SCORE! (1972) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Shaft (once again played by the charismatic Richard Roundtree) gets a late-night call from a friend in need.  When Shaft arrives too late, his buddy winds up dead.  It seems he was running numbers in the neighborhood and his crooked business partner might just be the one who rubbed him out.  There’s also the matter of a missing chunk of change totaling a quarter of a million dollars, which the Mob is keen to get their hands on.  Complicating matters is the reappearance of Shaft’s shady old nemesis, Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), who sticks his mitts in the action 

Shaft’s Big Score! is a decent enough Blaxploitation flick.  It just suffers from comparison to the iconic original.  Then again, maybe that’s unfair since Shaft was such a watershed moment for black cinema.  However, Shaft’s Big Score always seems like it’s in catch-up mode.  Director Gordon Parks made things look cool and effortless in the original, but here, everything seems a little too laid back for its own good. 

The action is lackluster too.  What action we do get is rather sparse and lacking the punch of the original.  (One fight also uses way too much slow motion.)  The car chase sequence in the third act is well done though, but the finale as a whole kinda drags. 

The music is a step down too.  While an OK theme song in its own right, “Blowin’ Your Mind” is nowhere near the bop the original Shaft theme was.  I guess Parks had a falling out with Isaac Hayes, which prevented him from contributing the main theme (he does have one song on the soundtrack though), but his presence is sorely missed. 

I definitely can’t fault Roundtree who is smooth and badass as only he could be.  He just doesn’t seem to drive the action the way he did in the original as there’s just too many side characters and subplots that prevent the film from really getting into gear.  I know I’ve spent a lot of time griping that it’s not as good as Shaft, but then again, few Blaxploitation flicks are.  It’s solid and moderately entertaining, but it just never really catches fire.