Shaft's Big Score! (1972)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1972
Running Time	100:57
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Sided	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Gordon Parks
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Richard Roundtree Moses Gunn
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Gordon Parks

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Having just reviewed Shaft, it seemed logical to review its sequel next; Shaft's Big Score.

    Shaft's Big Score opens with a client / friend of John Shaft's ringing him at 2am. Shaft is not asleep - in fact he is in bed with this guy's sister. As Shaft arrives to see his client, said client is blown through a window (Shaft movies tend to get off to a quick start).

    Shaft finds himself in the middle of trouble - he is between the client's crooked partner, the Mafia, a Harlem hoodlum's gang, and the police. Not a comfortable place to be, especially when quite a few of them (police included) are taking an interest in the sister, and most of the bad guys are looking for a quarter of a million dollars that seems to have gone missing. A lot happens before the end credits roll.

    It looks like this movie had a bigger budget than the first - the bad guys get a helicopter, and Shaft get a fairly awesome shotgun to back up his weedy looking revolver.

Video

    This movie was made in 1972, so it is 29 years old. All things considered, it looks good.

    The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. We also get a 1.33:1 Pan & Scan version on the other side of the disc. Again the cover is inaccurate - it claims the transfer to be 2.35:1 on both sides, with one being 16x9 enhanced. Don't believe it - only the credits are in letterboxed widescreen on the 4:3 side. The Pan & Scan version is not quite as clean as the widescreen, either.

    The image is a little soft, but not troublingly so - the image quality is a little better than the first movie. Shadow detail is fairly good, and there is little or no low-level noise.

    Colours are a little muted, probably because of the film stock used. The blood used for gun shots still looks terribly fake.

    There are some film artefacts, but they are all small and unobtrusive. There are no MPEG artefacts, and aliasing is only noticeable a couple of times. Again we see some camera bounce - these guys could really have used a Steadicam - shame it hadn't been invented!

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on this DVD; English, French, and Italian. All three are in Dolby Digital 1.0. I listened to the English soundtrack. This soundtrack is quite noticeably louder than its predecessor - I returned to my normal listening level for this one.

    The dialogue is mostly clear and readily understood. There are some examples of poor quality ADR work, but they are not too bad.

    The director, Gordon Parks, is also responsible for the score. It quotes from the score to the original movie, but adds some originality, too.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are untroubled by a straight mono sound track like this.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static, with the music running in the background.

Cast and Crew

    A single page listing the stars and some of the crew - not much of an extra

Trailer (2:58)

    The Region 4 disc misses out on:

• trailers for the other two Shaft movies
• a bio for director Gordon Parks

The Region 1 disc misses out on:

• an Amaray case

    I'd recommend the Region 4 because it is PAL rather than NTSC, and because it is in a transparent Amaray case instead of a snapper.

    Shaft's Big Score is a reasonable sequel, with a decent transfer.

    The video quality is quite good.

    The audio quality is good, for a mono track.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall