If you caught the 30-odd-year-old original Shaft (starring Richard Roundtree) and the sequel Shaft's Big Score on tv recently you'll be aware that it wouldn't take much to improve on the old formula. Having said that, however, the original is one of those cult classics that is part of the human psyche whether you have seen it or not. The theme tune is just as widely known too, of course, and its composer/performer, Isaac Hayes, is well known to South Park fans in his almost-as-cool-as-Shaft Chef role.

Samuel L was a natural choice for the new Shaft. I say new Shaft for, although the name is the same, the modern John Shaft is actually nephew to the famous PI with attitude. In fact, to tie the two together, John Shaft Snr (Roundtree) actually plays a part as Uncle John, obviously doing well in the PI business - with the money and the broads.

Detective John Shaft is a policeman with attitude in pursuit of an uptown white honky who murdered a coloured brother outside a restaurant in a fit of racial-incited rage.

With daddy's wealth and city influence, Wade (Bale) posts bail and skips the country. Two years later he returns -- straight into the arms of the ever-vigilant Shaft.

The judicial system, for which Shaft and the rest of the force works, fails yet again to hold up its end of the scale, turning the murderer loose on the city. Disillusioned with the injustice of the justice system, Shaft (literally) throws in his badge to take the bad guy down anyway he can.

Free on his own recognisance, Wade sets about finding the only eyewitness capable of bringing him unstuck. With the same ruthlessness that got him in trouble in the first place, he hires a small army of crims and crooked cops to find Diane Palmiari (Collette) and snuff her out. Standing between him and the witness, however, is one man - what-happens-to-her-happen-to-me Shaft.

What follows is a bloodbath of epic proportions -- enough to satisfy any bloodlust if that's what you are in to. The one-liners and wisecracks come just as thick and fast, as you would expect.

"I may take you down, but I'll never let you down"