SHAFT Review: Do not risk your neck (or salary) for this brother

When Gordon Parks' Tree was released in theaters in 1971, it was revolutionary. When John Singleton Tree arrived in the summer of 2000, it was commonplace. And now that Tim Story Tree is here, it's ridiculous. You do not have to be a movie buff or social historian to see how much this franchise has failed: torpedoing the authority of the character with an incomprehensible intrigue, a brutality, a quirky humor and a realization. of ugly film, Story applies the same regressive ideas about masculinity and cultural awareness of follow and Think like a man reduce a celebration of radical black empowerment to a burlesque comedy of action.

Jesse Usher (Independence Day: Resurgence) plays John "JJ" Shaft Jr., data analyst for the FBI, who seeks help from his father, private detective John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), after the mysterious death of Karin (Avan Jogia), his best friend of long standing conditions. Bringing together their skills, JJ and John soon discover a criminal plot involving Karin's veteran service group, a local supermarket making incredibly generous donations to a Harlem mosque, and Middle East heroin shipments to Pierro. Gordita "Carrera (Isaach Bankole), a powerful drug lord that John has been trying to bring down since the birth of JJ. But when JJ's FBI superiors worry too much about the public's perceptions of ethnic profiling in response to the Shafts' testimony, father and son are forced to do justice themselves to bring the killers to justice. from Karin and protect the streets of New York. .

To be honest, none of this matters, other than the joke that follows between JJ and John Shaft – and finally, JJ's grandfather (Richard Roundtree), who insists that he is the best of both fathers although he told John that he was his nephew rather than his own. his son (an extremely continuous piece of retroactive continuity that defeats a stupid idea of ​​Singleton's movie in 2000). Revelations about the perpetrators of crimes where and with whose help arrive mediocre, the exhibitor explodes every few minutes, largely as a result of the temporary lack of topics on which the father and the son argue – a list including millennial dress, describing what is "true" music, how men can and should behave, the proper treatment of women, and acceptable signifiers of darkness. But these discussions are also not meaningful – an exchange of ideas to achieve understanding, mutual respect or a kind of generational balance; rather, they reinforce the age-specific stereotypes that have been explored solely for the sake of comedy at the lowest common denominator.

Work from a scenario of Kenya Barris (Girls' travel, Television Blackish) and Alex Barnow (TV The Goldbergs), Story directs each scene as a sitcom in search of an audience, Usher and Jackson mutually interacting at maximum volume, then creates occasional confused clutter of images supposed to be a scene of action. But worse than editing plans is the use of music by the movie, a complete collection of hip-hop and r & b songs that sound as if they had been played from a CD, being given the seriousness of the verses and choirs playing – and the scenes themselves – feel less jerky in their rhythms. Meanwhile, a score by Christopher Lennertz (Uncle Drew) attempts awkwardly to insert in some leitmotifs the iconic music of Isaac Hayes of 1971.

Despite everything, this manages to be the most adept tribute of the film to his predecessors. Story's efforts to play with the 1970s cinematographic style, including multiple screen frames and editing, are not only heartless, they are also meaningless. But worst of all – and most inexplicably considering Barris' pedigree combining comedy and comment – TreeTreating real social problems such as poverty and addiction is not just negligence, it's also irresponsible. No film with this name should have drug addicts whose state or desperation serves as multiple typing lines.

Nevertheless, Jackson seems to take advantage of the opportunity to play in a film where he is not only top-billed, but actually becomes the main character of most scenes, while Usher highlights his talent and his charisma worthy of a better material to present it. But Regina Hall (Little) as John's ex Maya and especially Alexandra Shipp (Dark Phoenix) as Sasha, JJ's potential love interest, abandons almost all the scenes in which they find themselves, even though Maya is singularly charged with being sharp and profane and Sasha exists almost exclusively to reinforce JJ's nascent masculinity under the intimidating direction of his father. How a film with such anemic female characters – also including Lauren Velez (In the spider worm) as the owner of a fishy supermarket – managed to get them the best performance on the screen is unclear, but these are easily the most memorable and dynamic characters.

Ultimately, Tree falls in the same category as Men in black: International – A restart that has obviously all the ingredients necessary to succeed, but still manages to abuse. Only in a week where Men in black: International spell could Tree not to be the worst opening movie in theaters.