Shaft in Africa

Shaft in Africa (1973) — watch online on iFILM — is the third entry in the original Shaft trilogy, directed by John Guillermin, with Richard Roundtree returning as detective John Shaft.

This time Shaft gets coerced into taking the job: dismantle a trafficking ring moving young African men into Europe as near-slave labor. He goes in undercover, armed with little more than a walking stick and nerve. Vonetta McGee plays a woman already embedded in the operation — ally or threat, not immediately clear. Frank Finlay is the composed villain pulling the strings from a comfortable distance.

Of the three original films, this one reaches the furthest geographically and stumbles the most in doing so. Whether that is a flaw depends on how much slack you give a blaxploitation picture that overreaches. Stream Shaft in Africa (1973) online on iFILM.