Product Details

• Actors: James Marshall, Naomi Watts, Eric Thal, Michael Ironside, Edward Herrmann
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: May 20, 2003
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008RUYS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,911 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Shaft" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 21-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAMPY WARNER, January 6, 2004

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Shaft (DVD)

Remember, folks, this movie was made before the awful disaster on 9/11. Wisely, the movie got held until later. So, if you consider that, the terrorist implication and the jokes about Bin Laden perhaps formed a sort of foreshadowing or warning. At any rate, I found "The Shaft" rather enjoyable. It has several really disturbing scenes: the death of the skateboarder was incredibly paced and filmed; the floor dropping out was mindboggling; and even the decapitated security guard's death was nerve-wracking. Add some really "humorous" asides: the foul mouthed day care teacher was way out of left field. The performances were adequate. Take Naomi Watts off of her post-Shaft pedestal (Mulholland Drive/The Ring) and you get a young actress doing the best with what she had. James Marshall who also worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks is effective, not great. Eric Thal did a nice job as his friend Jeffrey; Michael Ironside, Ron Pearlman and Dan Hedaya were effective in their almost cameo roles. Even Edward Hermann looking more and more like a younger Rudy Vallee captured the right amount of commercialism in his role. Maybe they did use the f word a little too much, but have you noticed that if the f word gets used a lot in a critically acclaimed movie (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, etc.) no one gripes about that.
Take THE SHAFT for what it is--an above average thriller that delivers.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hmmmm..., June 4, 2003

By 

Christopher Cantrell (Huntsville, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shaft (DVD)

This movie does for elevators what The Legend of Boggy Creek 2 did for Mad Dog attacks. It's all about elevators with human brains that force women into premature labor, teach skaters not to smoke pot, pose as terrorists and kill men, women, children, the blind and their seeing eye dogs. James Marshall stars as an ex-marine elevator repairman that plays air guitar. He's really come a long way since his Twin Peaks days-this is the male equivalent of being spit out of the bottom of the porn industry. Naomi Watts' portrayal of the smut journalist rivals that of James Earl Jones in The Ambulance. I must warn you that she is much, much less naked than she is in Mulholand Dr. It boggles the mind that she made Lynch's Oscar nominated tribute to ambiguity, The Ring and The Shaft all in the same year. The rest of the cast is a duck gallery of B-movie actors: Ron Perlman (the brilliantly played retarded/perverted monk Salvatore in The Name of the Rose as well as Konstantine Konali in Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow), Dan Hedaya (Karla's ex-husband on Cheers, Richard Nixon in Dick and Alicia Silverstone's father in Clueless), Edward Herrmann (the head, middle-age single mother chasing vampire in The Lost Boys), Michael Ironside (from Starship Troopers, and Seaquest fame) and many more that I'm tired of looking up. Martin McDougall and John Cariani star as a pair of porn-obsessed night watchman that are salute to the bumbling law enforcers in Plan 9 from Outer Space. Well...maybe they are. The movie works on many levels, e.g., most of the people who rent or buy this movie end up feeling like they got The Shaft. I really can't figure out if it's good or bad. It's either very, very clever or one of the worst I've ever seen. Nonetheless, I'm buying the DVD.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No, it doesn't give you the shaft, April 18, 2008

By 

Bud Bundy "B movie lover" (MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Shaft (DVD)

So the Millennium building in NYC has a killer elevator. Why is it killing people you ask? An elevator repairman and a newspaper reporter(Naomi Watts) are hot on the case. And hot definitely describes Naomi Watts. I got a real kick out of these two. They're very entertaining, and there's some fun elevator kills to boot.

Yes this movie is cheesy. If you're expecting something like The Exorcist or Alien, you might want to check the cover of the DVD box - it's a killer elevator movie for chrissakes. If you're in the mood for a cheesy good time, you'll probably enjoy the heck out of it. I know I did. And yes, they did figure out a way to fit Aerosmith's Love in an Elevator into the perfect closing credits scene.