[Shaft is] quite a lively article—a straight forward, one-to-one transformation of the elements of 'forties' thrillers into contemporary terms. It is in between the action and the constant crackle of hip jargon that there is room for dissatisfaction. Although Parks has revitalised the clichés more thoroughly than many similar attempts—to the extent of a black private eye, Harlem locations, and so on—and has avoided nostalgia for a recreated style, retaining only a few small touches of parody, the new life is never altogether comfortable inside the old body.

Opening high-angle shots of Fun City establish the setting and society in a slickly stereotyped way. For the duration of the credits Shaft moves through these streets; his position as a self-elected rather than socially segregated outsider is noted before the sequence ends with a joke that anticipates all the subsequent ironies about the obvious, and...