Not Everyone Gets The “Shaft”

While it is difficult to understand some of the dialogue in Tony Flush's "Official Shaft Parody," we do know that Nat Turnher's private eye and his circle of friends and nemeses like the juicy ladies. And this comes through clearly.

Official Shaft Parody

Studio: Black Ice
Director: Tony Flush
Starring: Jessica Bangkok, Porsha Carrera, Bella Moretti, Austin Taylor, Nyomi Banxxx, Jayden, Wesley Pipes, Nat Turnher, Dsnoop.

Review by: Gram Ponante

Flush and company do their best to re-create a blaxploitation style with Turnher's 'fro and 'stache, as well as the blonde afro of Naomi Banxxx as Lady Marmalade, but it seems like Flush ran out of gas when attempting to direct his script, which includes a lot of funny lines that get buried under poor editing and lackluster delivery.

Dick Shaft is tasked with rescuing the sister of his enemy, Cochise (Wesley Pipes) against a ticking clock of losing his private eye license at the hands of a corrupt cracker cop. DSnoop's DJ Radio Rahim (wasn't he in "Do the Right Thing"?) acts as a Greek chorus throughout the movie (whereas, in "Do the Right Thing," the DJ character and Radio Rahim were separate guys).

It is this pervasive lack of attention to detail (don't show clocks in your movie unless you plan to reset them for the view outside your window, or if the second hand is clearly not moving) that takes people out of the movie.

But there's plenty to get you back into the movie, too. Naomi Banxxx is always fun to watch, as is the phat Jessica Bangkok and a steamy tryst between Bella Moretti and Porsha Carrera. A bespectacled woman named Jayden finishes off DSnoop, whose Snoop-like delivery is the funniest in the movie, and there is, as in all of Flush's movies, a good humor about the whole piece that makes it easy to forgive a lot of the flaws; his movies are never mean-spirited.

So you won't see much in this parody that reminds you of the original (there wasn't even an attempt at an Isaac Hayes-esque theme song), but it was great fun to watch these ladies when the stirrup pants came off.

· Black Ice DVD (blackicedvd.com)
· Buy "Official Shaft Parody" (tlavideo.com)