Ultra-violent, politically incorrect and so hard-boiled it could crack your skull, director John Singleton's sequel and update to the definitive blaxploitation series of the early 70’s does the original trilogy proud and maybe even one better. This movie’s got so much attitude it practically swaggers off the screen.

A perfectly cast Samuel L. Jackson puts on the leather jacket of John Shaft, now the nephew of the original films' hero (Richard Roundtree), and a detective for the NYPD. Shaft is investigating the racially motivated murder of a young black man, and nails a bigoted blue blood named Walter Wade (Christian Bale). But when the witness (Toni Collette) disappears, the killer walks. Shaft makes it a personal crusade to bring him in.

It's a storyline straight out of any generic TV crime show, and in the movie's worst moments, it plays like one (especially scenes with Vanessa L. Williams, as a good-hearted cop). There are formula moments involving Shaft's adversarial boss, some crooked cops, and a comic relief buddy (rapper Busta Rhymes). But the writing (by Singleton, Shane Salerno and novelist Richard Price) is smarter, tighter and tougher than TV. The story is crammed with characters, roles are well-defined and the larger-than-life acting is a kick to watch.

Beyond the charismatically cool Jackson, who's found his signature role as the badass black Bond, Shaft is blessed with two menacing villains played by talented actors. Bale, just off a tour-de-force turn as the American Psycho, offers his snooty superciliousness with a fresh chill and is hissably evil. With Wade’s money, connections and battalion of lawyers, audiences will want to pay good money to watch him go down.

Even better is Jeffrey Wright, the versatile New York theater actor, as arrogant, trash-talking Hispanic gang leader Peoples Hernandez. This is a star-making performance from a guy who’s proving to be a chameleon (his last role was a taciturn black man in the underrated Ride with the Devil!). Wily but not all that bright, Hernandez is by turns charming and scary, smooth then coarse; he’s the most fascinating and compelling villain in years.

Both bad guys are formidable opponents, and get a lot of screen time to establish their motivations and personalities. They’re key to the film’s success, and make what’s at stake in Shaft feel real. As murderer and gang leader slowly realize they have similar enemies and agendas, the picture busts out of its genre with unexpectedly absorbing and believably human scenes where each tries to be top dog in a wary alliance.

Singleton, a respected dramatic director (Boyz ‘N the Hood, Rosewood) before he took a stab at action, effectively captures the independent spirit and defiant attitude of the first Shaft movies. Some people are going to be offended by the movie's proud vigilante posturing and its controversial racial themes (not to mention the sometimes off-putting violence and relentless foul language), but it’s all exactly in line with where a Shaft movie should be in the year 2000.

Singleton also wisely remembers what to keep from 1971. Isaac Hayes' Oscar-winning score returns virtually intact, and David Arnold’s supplemental music jells perfectly; with so many action movies’ music sounding the same, Shaft's brings identity and personality. It was equally smart to bring back Roundtree as the elder Shaft, now wealthy and running his own detective firm, but just as cynical and as much a ladies’ man as the old days.

Finally, as an action flick, Shaft delivers better than any movie this year, with a pair of exhilarating sequences that keep topping themselves just when you’re thinking there’s nowhere else for the filmmakers to go. Until the last big shootout, they’re not that ridiculous, either. I cheered. A couple times.

“Still the man,” reads the movie poster. Dammmmnnnn right.

T.W. Siebert