Shaft (2012)

'Shaft' , the classic detective film from 1971, is just as good as 'The French Connection' or 'Bullitt' but with a style all it's own. A good story, convincing action and a gritty realistic look plus Issac Hayes and his driving score and you really have a time machine slice of the early 70's. I really hate this film being called the first "Blackploitation" film. Whether or not the main character is played by a black man, 'Shaft' is a cool and hip urban detective thriller with loads of action, a bit of humor, plot twists and even romance here and there. (ok, how about just some casual sex but hey, I'm talkin' about Shaft!) This is a really cool movie and has stood the test of time!

With that said, this review is going to focus on the picture and sound quality and if this Blu Ray is a solid upgrade from your DVD or VHS copy.

Shaft is presented on a BD-25 in full 1080p with a good solid transfer. Strong primary colors abound and while there is an abundance of film grain, for the most part it is just not obtrusive. There are 2 or 3 short scenes where the film elements have badly degraded and they are easy to spot. For an example, look at the master shot where Shaft is ready to leave after drinking his espresso. Another is in Bumpy's office when his wall hangings seem to come alive with dancing mosquito noise. But all in all, this is a good solid transfer. A bit of edge enhancement exists but it helps support the overall rendering in this case. DNR is just not an issue with 'Shaft' on Blu. You get all the grain, the good and the bad. Compared to the Blu Ray of '48 Hours' this is demo material, so don't think it is really bad. It isn't.

The motion is smooth and artifact free and while grain sometimes darkens the contrast levels just a bit too much, overall 'Shaft' looks really fantastic on Blu Ray, especially given the fact it was a low budget production. I was really happy watching it and felt I was watching a film and not some digital piece of garbage. A good solid 3 and 3/4 stars out of 5 and sometimes it strays into a solid 4 and beyond.

So how is the audio? What you get here is a Mono DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack. Before you get up in arms over the soundtrack being in Mono, the original audio elements used to create this films soundtrack were not available and as such the mixed elements from the original Mono track had to be used. They have been cleaned up and are presented in Lossless Audio and they sound as good or better than they ever did in the theater where 'Shaft' had always been presented in nothing but Mono. Because things are so clear sounding, you can pretty much spot every time the dialogue had to be looped (dubbed later due to problems with the original production sound) but they don't stand out too badly. The music has plenty of dynamics and while stereo would have been SO MUCH better, this rendering is just fine. A few lines here and there seemed a bit buried in the mix, but this IS the original mix and you can rest assured you are hearing things much better than people did back in '71.

You get a few cool extras with 'Shaft" as well but they are unfortunately all in SD. You get a full length 1973 Shaft TV episode and a short documentary called'Soul In Cinema' plus trailers for all 4 'Shaft' films.

'Shaft" comes to Blu Ray in a very respectable package, with a better than average transfer for a catalog title and solid sound as well. This is not demo material, but it presents this film as good or better than it ever looked at the movies, unless you saw a brand new print on the first run. Now if they would get busy and release the other 3 that would be quite the collection.

Recommended for fans of 'Shaft' and fans of older films in general!

This is a great blu-ray release from WB.

The original flipper dvd also had a vintage featurette, that is also on this BD, but there is a an extra that really makes this release special, the inclusion of a rare 1973 Shaft TV movie called "The Killing" it's in rough shape, but it's awseome that Warner Bros included it as an extra, so in a sense you get two films for the price of one!

The PQ and AQ on the feature film is good for this 70's classic.

Forget the Samuel L Jackson remake, THIS IS THE REAL SHAFT, as portrayed by underrated Richard Roundtree.

Buy Shaft (2012) Now

This has been one of my favorite movies since it first came out. I've admired Gordon Parks eye for detail since his days as a still photographer and he and his cinemagrapher Urs Furrer made this a gorgeous film to look at. The one thing that always bothered me about this film was the muddy, murky sound. That is no longer a problem. The sound is now crystal clear. So if you're a fan of this 70's hit, Isaac Hayes soundtrack and all, get it!

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Man, I bought the original Shaft, dual-sided DVD back around 1999 or 2000 and kept it all the way until today it even survived a house fire! Since then, I must have watched it at least 500 times, that's how much I love this film. Since Blu-Ray came out (I bought in a year later), I always imagined this film on BD and how it would look. I EXPECTED surround sound given the classic soundtrack as well as superb picture, even though the film grain I knew would be a problem.

I have gone through different DVD and Blu-Ray players up until now. I have had HD upconverting players and various BD players that upconvert to varying degrees. I now have a Sony BDP-S1000ES which as far as I am concerned, is as good as it get's without having Farrari money! So I have seen Shaft on different Players and I know this film and every detail like I know myself. Of course I could not wiat to see if this was an improvement or not. "Professional" reviews gave the picture quality 4.5 stars out of five, which looked strange since their screen shots looked murky. I still had to have it regardless.

The Good: It is on BD so this is a plus, but of course the heavy grain follows it as well. I expect the grain since much of the film's scenes are dark. When scenes are filmed in darker areas you get more grain, when in lighter areas there is less grain and much more detail. The colors did not really get a BD boost and they still look similar to the DVD, but with a little bit more pop but not much! I can say that I can now make out the finer detail in the clothing (but not like other BD's) and I can now appreciate the suits as fine wears. You know 70's gear is always laughable, but Bumpy's suit and coat looked really fine in the scene where he asked Shaft to find his daughter while in Shaft's office. I could make out that he had a green hat, tan outer coat of which I can now see vertical lines, fine tailoring and nice buttons. It changed my perception of some 70's clothing.

The sound was clearer of course, but still kind of muddy, but you can hear each sound clearer than before. The music sounds way better than the DVD, but it would have been nice to get at least stereo like I had written Warner Brothers for years asking for! I am still hoping for at least stereo for the Superfly BD!

The Bad: It had no surround sound or at least stereo! I expect that these days, this is not a 1930's film and it had an Academy Award winning soundtrack! This is not acceptable, but I do not expect them to d anything about it. They could have also put this in a box set with all three films as I expected them to do.

They could have at least designed a new cover or used elements of the original theater poster art of promos those were hot! I know that the idea is to not make and old film look old for this day and age or get lost on the shelf with too much detail, but after having stared at the DVD cover for the last 12 years, it would have been nice to seen something different! The actual disc art is not here at all! The disc is just a black disc with the word Shaft on it! Talk about cheap! I guess that is how they are doing these BD's these days. It is the studio's fault for cheapening them up and now people expect $10 BD's!

Final: Is this a major jump from DVD to BD? Not really except for the last third of the film where it is filmed in a better lit area like the hotel where Marcy was being held. There, you can see finer details that you expect on a BD disc. Again, the dark scenes will have too much grain no matter what so that cannot be helped. It is likely that this will be as good as it can possibly get unless that take the best print of the film and do a restoration of some sort, but when 4K becomes common, I will not make the upgrade if this is offered.

I love technology, so I had to have this film on BD. If you are one of those who just turns things on, likes that it is clear and does not care how it works, then this is for you. If you were looking for a BD upgrade of the DVD similar to a Scarface, Dog Day Afternoon or The Green Mile, then this may not be for you as you do not see such a jump throughout the film, but it is a step up. If you have the DVD and you are not the upgrading type and you have an upconverting DVD or BD player (that does it well), then you can keep your disc, unless you really want to get rid of that dual-sided disc like I wanted to! If you do not have the DVD, then of course get the BD and forget about the DVD! If you love Shaft (and Shaft's: Big Score!) like I do, then you will get this regardless.

Lastly, they included one of the TV films on this disc, which they could have made clearer. It is not as bad quality as some make it sound, but it is not even DVD quality. They could have at least made it DVD quality along with making the trailers true HD and all bonus materials on ALL BD's that were not shot on film HD. It is supposed to be HD, so that is all that I expect to see. Since this is on a single layer, 25GB disc, it goes to show that all they did was put the DVD transfer onto BD as opposed to going all out and doing a new file for BD. You can tell they did this because of the size of the disc and because of the same cover art which they used for the menu! Also, maybe they did it because of the amount of film grain and figured it would not matter to most, but 50GB is the standard. When they talking about 100GB discs being the future (I have not see on yet, of the Deep Color!), there was really no exucse for not giving us a 50GB disc.

Want Shaft (2012) Discount?

Product is great. Video transfer is superb. Sorta wished tho it was available to purchase in stores as opposed to burn on demand. "The black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks' deserves better, but the chance to have vintage stuff like this is a blessing so I can't complain.

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