Highest 2 Lowest, 2025.
Directed by Spike Lee.
Starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, Elijah Wright, Rick Fox, Rod Strickland, Nuri Hazzard, Jensen McRae, Jade Cayne, Imana Breaux, Andy McQueen, Ice Spice, Sunni Valentine, Frederick Weller, Michael Potts, Samm Davis, Allison Worrell, Dean Winters, LaChanze, John Douglas Thompson, Wendell Pierce, Eoin O’Shea, Gregory Dann, Don Lemon, A$AP Rocky, Nick Turturro, Rosie Perez, Anthony Ramos, and Eddie Palmieri.
SYNOPSIS:
When a titan music mogul is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma.
There are shot-for-shot soulless imitations and then there are artful remakes. Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest – based on Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which itself was adapted from Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom – is an electrifying example of the latter that deepens the original. Swapping the industries from shoes to music, Spike Lee (working with a screenplay from Alan Fox) also seems aware that a remake must come with an artist’s stamp on the material, perhaps learning a lesson from his Oldboy remake, which should stay forgotten in a ditch where it belongs. If there’s a spark and an impassioned purpose for existing, there’s a good chance something worthwhile will come of it. It’s also fitting considering, even in the music industry, no one wants to hear a cover song that is all bland imitation.
Highest 2 Lowest is practically bursting with Spike Lee’s fixations, ranging from Black culture to New York sports (while often functioning as a love letter to the state and city)’s architecture and melting pot society (brought to life with bustling energy courtesy of cinematographer Matthew Libatique) to, obviously music in what could also be read as standing in for an ever-changing (some would say devolving and they wouldn’t be wrong) filmmaking industry. This is a film so Spike Lee-coded that part of the centerpiece ransom drop-off/heist involves Yankee Stadium and a train full of New York Yankees fans who are comically incensed, assuming that Boston Red Sox fans must have something to do with the chaos unfolding.
It’s also important to note that while funneling his interests into this take on a classic film, Spike Lee hasn’t lost sight of the moral and class dilemmas at the heart of the narrative. Denzel Washington’s David King (a surname that, while consistent with the original and could be pure coincidence, takes on another meaning here when one thinks about Martin Luther King Jr. as an activist for Black futures) is a Grammy-winning musician turned hotshot hip-hop recording label executive preparing to double back on accepting a buyout and bet on himself, purchasing full ownership as he cares about the music and supporting the careers of up-and-coming Black artists with potential.
That’s a heavy responsibility to bear, with David understandably nervous about taking this risk in an entertainment world where his fingers might be sliding off the pulse for reasons that aren’t his fault; generative AI is given a verbal smackdown here, and the kind that one needs to hear coming out of Denzel Washington’s fiery mouth (a scorcher of a performance) that could strip down anyone or anything with the perfect combination of grace, spunk, and attitude.
Supremely wealthy and living comfortably (it will be an insult if production designer Mark Friedberg is not in the award consideration for the construction of the King home alone, filling frames out with Black pop culture and sports memorabilia, ranging from Stevie Wonder to Aretha Franklin to Mohammed Ali to Kamala Harris to a replica Jackie Robinson jersey and a retro baseball scoreboard depicting three innings of a Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees game), David’s loyal and supportive (but not voiceless) wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) is set to give a generous donation for a Black cultural cause, understandably temporarily stepping aside for her husband to spend $17.5 million in a power-play deal that would give him control over his label.
David’s son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), also has an eye for talent that could be helpful to his father should he ever take his opinion seriously. Trey is pining over beautiful singer Sula Janie Zimmie (Aiyana-Lee), but genuinely believes she has talent. It’s not that David is necessarily stubborn (although he is at times throughout the story), but that he also needs to assure himself and everyone around him that he still has the knack for finding aspiring musicians to have that IT factor. Much like the film itself, his risks are multilayered and, in numerous ways, come across as Spike Lee using the character as a cipher for himself in the modern filmmaking landscape.
Sticking with that theory, that also means the ending (and this entire film, to be fair) is both livewire proof he can still hang with the best of them, while also encouraging, possibly even daring, the next generation of Black directors to take the crown from him if they can. Considering that this film ingeniously implements “A24” plastered somewhere I won’t spoil, that metaphor could also be widened to a commentary on independent and mainstream entertainment
Admittedly, there was a bit of concern that once the film slips further into\ High and Low, getting into the abduction angle of David’s son, which turns out to be the kidnapper’s (voiced over phone calls and inevitably seen, ambitiously and lively played by real-life musician A$AP Rocky, which will probably give some indication as to how the material has been deepened here) screw-up having accidentally snatched Trey’s best friend, that the specificity and uniqueness of this take would dissipate. These matters are not helped by an anachronistic classical score from Howard Drossin that feels out of place in specific interactions and scenes, in need of something more propulsive, reflecting the urgency of the situation. Thankfully, the composer doesn’t only find that for the second half, but has crafted some beautifully momentous music that bears similarities to Japanese scores while also functioning as something fresh.
Initially agreeing to hand over that same $17.5 million in exchange for his son, David reneges on that deal, much to the chagrin of his close friend and personal assistant Paul (Jeffrey Wright, equal parts dramatic and hilarious) who has already recently and tragically lost his life, and would desperately like to see his son come home safely. As such, pride and social class are once again woven into the thematic fabric of the narrative, resonating strongly given that David and the abductor come from the same industry. His advisors also tell David that if he remains this cold and heartless, social media will burn him at the stake, and he will never have control of his company. Here, Spike Lee works in more to ponder about the nature of 24/7 news cycles, whether anyone is ever truly canceled, and how, sometimes, doing the right thing (pun intended) doesn’t always yield positive results.
Above all else, Highest 2 Lowest is massively entertaining: it is Spike Lee updating the material for the modern world, but more so, he bends the material to his passions and sensibilities, allowing that to come organically. There are no lows here, only highs.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
