Shaft (2019)

In 1989, NYPD Detective John Shaft, his wife Maya, and their infant son JJ Shaft survive an assassination attempt by drug lord Pierro “Gordito” Carrera. Concerned that Shaft’s lifestyle will put them in danger, Maya moves upstate, divorces Shaft, and raises JJ on her own. Twenty-five years later, Shaft has quit the NYPD to become a PI and JJ is a rookie FBI analyst and cybersecurity expert with a degree from MIT. After Karim, his childhood friend and former US Army soldier, is said to have died because of a heroin overdose, JJ concludes he must have been murdered. JJ travels to Harlem to investigate Manuel, the drug dealer who sold the heroin that Karim allegedly bought, but is violently ejected from his property. While being treated for a minor injury in the hospital by doctor Sasha, JJ’s other childhood friend and his unrequited crush, he shows her Karim’s toxicology report.

She notes that the amount of heroin in Karim’s system would have killed him long before he could have taken that much by himself, suggesting that he was indeed murdered.  With no other recourse, JJ turns to his father for aid. Shaft agrees to help after realizing that JJ’s case may lead him to Gordito. The two begin investigating together, but JJ’s progressive white collar outlook on life clashes with Shaft’s old-school street ways. After confronting Manuel, the Shafts investigate “Brothers Watching Brothers”, the drug rehab clinic Karim helped founded with fellow ex-soldiers Cutworth, Williams and Dominguez. There they learn that Karim stopped going to rehab in favor of attending services at a mosque currently under suspicion by the FBI for terrorism. Sasha accompanies JJ and Shaft to investigate the mosque, where they are removed from the premises after the imam notices JJ’s FBI badge.