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Good concept, poorly executed.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let's face it, the great thing about SHAFT was the fact that Richard Roundtree represented a new, ultra hip inner city private eye. With that novelty gone, this sequel turns out to be a fairly pedestrian crime thriller. Despite decent direction by Gordon Parks and a script by Ernest Tidyman, there's nothing new or particularly exciting here. Roundtree is fine and the supporting cast features a mixed bag of character actors: Drew Bundini Brown; Julius Harris; Joe Santos; Wally Taylor. Joseph Mascolo plays the villain, a pretentious fop who makes shrimp Newberg and plays the piccolo. There is an exciting, if protracted, chase sequence involving cars, a boat and a helicopter. The music, which is good, is mostly by Parks himself. Moses Gunn plays "Bumpy."

In this second installment in the Shaft franchise, the film centers much more on mobsters than on John Shaft. It seems that $250,000 has disappeared and mobsters are threatening to kill an innocent widow to find the money. So, naturally, in steps Shaft to save the widow and out-muscle the mob.What was so great about the first film, SHAFT, was its "cool factor". Richard Roundtree was smart, handsome and always in control--a man other men would have wanted to be. However, here he's not in the film as much and he's less a Black hero and more just a hustler with way too much emphasis on action and not enough on brains and determination. The best example of this is the very silly ending. It's Shaft versus a ton of mobsters in cars and a helicopter--and Shaft manages to take out every crook AND knock down a helicopter with a shotgun. All the crooks had were pistols and a machine gun!!! They didn't stand a chance in this ridiculous finale.I was an enormous fan of the original SHAFT (1971) and because of that I was sure to seek out this sequel. Unfortunately, so much of what I loved in the original was gone and this turned out to be just another action picture. For example, the great tune "Shaft" by Isaac Hayes was gone and the music was rather bland. While still watchable, it's also rather brainless and forgettable--earning a 5. Sadly, the next film SHAFT IN Africa is even worse.

Shaft really was the African-American answer to the popular James Bond franchise. This movie shows this perhaps more than any of the other Shaft movies. Violence, girls, sex, chases, "Shaft's Big Score!" has it all!By no means any of the Shaft movies are among the greatest of all time. Nevertheless they are extremely memorable thanks to its main character, played by Richard Roundtree. He's hip, digs his women and isn't afraid to hold back when it comes to action. He's a classic and important iconic African-American character from the '70's.The movie its story and plot lines are a bit messy (in that way this movie also resembles James Bond movies), which also makes the movie unclear and not always totally interesting to follow. The movie also really lacks a good main ruthless villain. The villain in this movie is perhaps introduced a bit too late to really leave his mark on the movie. In that way "Shaft's Big Score!" is a really lacking movie, when it comes down to its story, storytelling and characters.Thankfully the movie isn't lacking in action and great dialog. Some of the dialog is just brilliant and suits the atmosphere of the movie- and its time period extremely well. Also of course the music adds to this atmosphere. But surprisingly good is also the action in the movie. The movie doesn't really feature that much action but the lack of it is made up during the great finale, that features a good old fashioned typical '70's car chase, boat chase and helicopter chase in one, James Bond style. It's really true that the ending makes up a lot. It makes you forget some of the weaker points of the movie, although in the end "Shaft's Big Score!" is still nothing more than an average action-flick with one great, cool main character.A good movie featuring the classic character Shaft and some really great action.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Man, did this film stink! It's obvious this film helped spurn Hollywood's need to churn out tired sequels to appeal to the masses. First of all, it came out too quickly, and second of all, it just didn't have the same hipness which made the original film so successful. No new ground was broken, and it turned into a rather mundane effort.