Moses Gunn and Drew Bundini Brown also return from the previous film, alongside new appearances from acting veterans Joseph Mascolo, Julius Harris and Joe Santos.

Queens private detective John Shaft is contacted by his old friend Cal Asby, an insurance salesman and mortician, who tells him he's in trouble and asks him to come immediately.

Bollin reveals to Shaft that Asby and Kelly were running a numbers racket with the insurance company and funeral parlor as profitable fronts but because they agreed to keep the scam clean, he looked the other way.

Shaft goes over the partnership papers with Arna and explains that although her brother was involved in gambling, he was reinvesting in the community, unlike the greedy Kelly.

Shaft believes that Kelly instead killed Asby to gain control of the businesses and the numbers racket, as well as to retain the $250,000 to pay Mascola.

As they are talking, two of Mascola's hitmen arrive to murder Shaft but he outwits them and, after killing the assassins, takes Arna to hide at his apartment.

Kelly offers Harlem racketeer Bumpy Jones a partnership in the Queens numbers game if he will help him break with Mascola.

Shaft overhears that Kelly has discovered the location of the $250,000 in a nearby cemetery, and with Rita's help manages to evade police and make his way there.

Shaft escapes the explosion and hides the bag, clambering over the docks in a cat-and-mouse chase with Mascola's men before destroying the helicopter and killings its occupants.

His review concluded, "Gordon Parks keeps improving as a technician, and 'Shaft' Big Score' is far more ambitious and professional than the original 'Shaft.'

'"[13] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film as "strenuous but unimaginative,"[14] expressing disappointment that the filmmakers didn't "attempt to do a little more the second time around—maybe give the hero some more humor and dimension and his adventures more scope and relevance."

He also called the absence of Isaac Hayes' score "a crucial loss ... You really miss that sound, which gave 'Shaft' a persistent, rhythmic drive and undercurrent.

"[15] Clyde Jeavons of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "It's efficient, exciting in a predictable, routine way, and excessively violent (with the emphasis on pyrotechnics, beatings and messy bullet-holes); but plot-wise it's patently absurd, with Shaft's invulnerability attaining supernatural proportions in the climax, as he makes life as easy as possible for his murderous opponents by scampering about suicidally in front of their machine guns, which he survives with nary a scratch.