Here's an entertaining follow-up to SHAFT, which, while lacking that film's originality and/or classic status, still proves to be worthwhile viewing for the masses - and perhaps a little more obscure than it ought to be. Okay, so I didn't enjoy this as much as the first one because perhaps the novelty of a streetwise wise-cracking black detective has gone, but the film still puts across the same gritty atmosphere of life on the street. This is a film of violence, with characters being bloodily beaten at regular intervals, and bullet hits which make their victims darned near explode.Once again Richard Roundtree reprises his role of the irrepressible John Shaft, this time battling double-crossing criminals and the underworld in his search for revenge for the murder of an old friend. Roundtree is replete with his cheesy one-liners as he fights racism in the police bureau and battles bad guys on the street. There's also a stash of loot hidden somewhere inside a graveyard and lots of differing factions who want a cut for themselves. The supporting cast of violent villains is a great one, with many familiar faces in the cast including the metal-armed killer from LIVE AND LET DIE.Speaking of Bond, there are some definite influences from that series on this film, and it's not trying to be as realistic as the first - just entertaining. The smack-bang over-the-top finale sees a huge chase involving cars, a speedboat, and a helicopter and is packed with impressive stunts, bloody squib hits, and the bangs of guns and screech of tyres. Well filmed and wildly entertaining, this is the highlight of the movie for me. It may be no classic but SHAFT'S BIG SCORE! is an enjoyable thriller with a very likable leading character.

The difference between "Shaft" and "Shaft's Big Score" is that director Gordon Parks flaunts a bigger, beefer budget. Whereas the production values on the original "Shaft" seemed threadbare, "Shaft's Big Score" boasts a thick carpet piled with production values. Unmistakably, "Shaft's Big Score" is an impressively photographed epic with "The Seven Ups" lenser Urs Furrer teaming back up with Parks. Furrer creates eloquent visual compositions with his Panavision cameras, especially during an exciting car, boat, and helicopter chase. Nothing is claustrophobic about this spacious sequel. Okay, Issac Hayes doesn't reprise his role as composer. Instead, Parks performs double duty as composer with three songs for O.C. Smith that he penned the lyrics to so he could take up the slack wherever he could. The opening moments of this "Shaft" have been staged with considerable finesse. The cross-cutting between Shaft at the wheel of a car in route to meet with a close friend, Cal Asby (Robert Kya-Hill) and the friend pacing his insurance office is nicely done. Joseph Mascolo's mafia villain is not your usual thuggish type. He is an accomplished clarinet player who appreciates the finer things in life. Ernest Tidyman, who created the "Shaft" character, penned the sequel, and he doesn't retread the original. Crime boss Bumpy Jones (Moses Gunn of "Shaft") and his bodyguard Willy (Drew Bundini Brown) reappear here, too, but Captain Bollin (Julius W. Harris of "Live and Let Die") replaces Lieutenant Vic Androzzi (Charles Cioffi of "Shaft").Yes, there is a coffee gag reminiscent of the original where Shaft orders his coffee black from Bollin's subordinate Cooper. Naturally, when Cooper returns, he hands Shaft a coffee with cream and three sugars.A partner in a New York City numbers racket, Cal Asby, dies in an explosion and his partner John Kelly (Wally Taylor of "Rocky III") searches for the loot that Asby cleaned out of the safe. Meanwhile, the Mafia wants half of the action, and Kelly already owes mob boss Gus Mascola (Joseph Mascolo of "Jaws 2") a quarter of a million dollars. Kelly has a gambling debt that he owes Mascola, and Mascola wants to cut up the numbers racket that Asby and Kelly have. As it turns out, Cal Asby's half of the organization belongs to his younger sister, Arna Asby (Rosalind Miles of "The Black Six"), and she is in bed with private detective John Shaft when Asby calls Shaft at 2 AM and informs him that he has deposited $5-thousand in his bank account. Asby and Shaft are friends so when Ashby dies in the explosion, Captain Bollin wonders if Shaft hasn't gone over to the other side because he saw Shaft speaking with Bumpy and Willy after Asby's funeral. Bollin knows that Asby and Kelly are running numbers, but they haven't harassed their operation because it doesn't involve loan sharking, drugs, and prostitution. Meanwhile, Kelly learns from custodian, Jesse (Jimmy Hayeson) at the funeral home that Asby had a shopping bag with him before he died and he entered the casket display room where the models are arranged for customers to review. Shaft wants answers from Kelly, and Kelly asks that Gus take Shaft off his back. Shaft outsmarts a couple of Italian mobsters who call on him.Eventually, Gus and his men get to Shaft and rough him up behind a Mother Ike's night club. This entire scene is lensed in slow-motion. If turnabout is fair play, Shaft retaliates later when Willy and he masquerade as window washers and break into Gus's luxurious penthouse. Shaft beats up Gus, and Willy drops Pascal (Joe Santos of "Blue Thunder") with a bottle across the top of his head. Afterward, Gus tells Pascal to take the red peppers that he sent him out to fetch and use them as suppositories. Anyway, Kelly concludes that Asby must have stashed the loot in his coffin so he takes a crew out to the Oakland cemetery, and they exhume the casket. The Italians descend on the graveyard by helicopter. Gus gets every dollar bill from Kelly because Kelly owes him everything, and then Pascal's men riddle the lot of them with lead. By this time, Shaft has shown up, and he surprises the Italians, disarms them, and takes Gus as a hostage. Kelly's girlfriend, Rita (Kathy Imrie of "16 Blocks"), takes the wheel while Shaft slams Gus into the backseat. Pascal pursues them in a Dodge Charger for a lengthy, careening, high speed automobile chase. The Italians in the helicopter code-named 2-4 Whiskey hover over the scene, and a marksman with a sniper rifle takes potshots at them. Shaft returns fire with what appears to be an automatic shotgun. Shaft transfers Mascola to a speedboat and cuffs him to it. Finally, Mascola dies when the speedboat that Shaft stole hits an embankment and blows up. The helicopter continues its pursuit of Shaft through an old, abandoned factory building. Indeed, this chase looks like something out of either Alfred Hitchcock or James Bond. Shaft stashes the $250-thousand in the weeds and shoots Pascal and then takes out the helicopter."Shaft's Big Score" lives up to its title. The plot is complicated enough without being obtuse. The visual look and design are impeccable. This is such a polished piece of celluloid that it's difficult to believe that Parks and Furrer could exhibit such artistry. Several women appear nude from the waist up. Parks appears in a cameo in Mother Ike's night club. The scene at the elevator between Kelly and an elderly African-American lady is hilarious. Kelly complains about her use of the elevator, and she asks him where his f*&king manners are. The music is different and bolsters the savage action. Roundtree nails the Shaft persona again, and the rest of the cast is good, especially Joe Santos as Pascal. Parks doesn't wear out his welcome either as "Shaft's Big Score" clocks in at a 105 minutes. This is a vintage example of blaxploitation as its slickest.

The second outing concerns about Shaft , the African-American independent eye-private . This time confronts sinister mobsters , battling black (again Bumpy, Moses Gunn) and white (Mascolo , Joe Santos) gangs . Fiercy Shaft finds a dead friend , a brother his sweet-girl , he ran under legitimate business , a funeral home and all types of insurances , however he hid stakes issues in Queens . Two-fisted Shaft in order to avenge his friend , vows revenge and investigates the deeds . Meanwhile , a police captain (Julius Harris) suspects on Shaft . Extremely tough Shaft spontaneously encounters himself in the middle of a bands war and running afoul of the underworld .This one features thrills , hair-raising suspense , raw energy , nudism, adult subject matter and lots of violence . Plenty of intrigue, kinky sex and noisy action ; Shaft keeps things moving along , until final fight on a pier with a breathtaking pursuit by helicopter . Violent , tough screenplay by Stirling Shilliphant based on characters created by Ernest Tidyman . Great and enjoyable musical score by the same director Gordon Parks in Isaac Hayes style , recently deceased. Hayes's theme song stills resonates today . Followed by superior third part 'Shaft in Africa (John Guillermin)' with Vonetta McGee and Frank Finlay ; besides contemporary and revisionist version by John Singleton (2000) with Samuel L. Jackson and as secondary Richard Roundtree as Shaft's uncle . Furthermore , seven television episodes (1973 , 74 years) starred by Roundtree . The Shaft series turned out to be one the best black films from the early 70s.

The enforced jollity of that exclamation mark should be a warning. 'Shaft's Big Score!', if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, must be the best 'bad' movie ever made. It is bad: supposedly an action film, direction, plot and action fell asleep as often as I did. But there is an intelligence and skill here unthinkable in, say, 'Police Academy IV'. If Shaft is Bond, than 'Shaft's Big Score' is an anti-Bond film, subjecting the hero to structuralist scrutiny, exposing his weaknesses and limitations; in one sex scene, site of his virile power, he dissolves into abstraction, his body disappearing from the place where it is most needed. A kind of ghost story, the funeral sequence is amazing, as a coffin is lowered down, but the camera rises and points at Shaft. This supernatural frisson is betrayed by the drive towards a risible helicopter climax.