Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest Is a Rich Feast for Movie Lovers: Review

At the beginning of Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, David King (Denzel Washington) is a happily married family man and dealmaking king on the verge of making his most important deal ever: Reclaiming ownership of Stackin’ Hits, the record label that made him into an industry mogul on par with the biggest names in music. His secret to success? Having “the best ears in the business,” able to identify rising talent just on the verge of greatness.

In order to buy his company back, David is ready to risk every penny he has — including his gorgeous DUMBO penthouse apartment with its stunning views of Manhattan. Unfortunately, it’s at this exact moment when a parent’s worst nightmare occurs: David gets a call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph), demanding an enormous ransom in exchange for Trey’s safe return.

The catch, though, is that the kidnappers made a mistake and took the wrong son — specifically Trey’s best friend Kyle (Elijah Wright), who happens to be the son of David’s forever loyal driver/best friend Paul (Jeffrey Wright — Elijah’s real-life father). When it was his son in need of rescuing, David didn’t hesitate. Now, though…

That’s the set-up for a musically-driven, tight little thriller, remixing the plot of Akira Kurosawa’s highly acclaimed High and Low for a new industry and a new era. Lee and writer Alan Fox remain truer than expected to the 1963 film, while still making notable changes: In the original, the businessman at the center of the story (played by the iconic Toshiro Mifune) works in the shoe industry, and the two boys at the center of the kidnapping plot are much younger. Kurosawa also didn’t draw out the suspense over which son was actually abducted, the way Lee does here. But all the changes and updates made happen with a great deal of respect for the original work being paid homage.

Yet the movie also feels like an opportunity for Lee to reengage with the city he loves and the art form that has defined his life: You can sense his love for making movies in New York so profoundly, especially in the movie’s dazzling showstopper set piece, an intricately choreographed sequence that pits the full force of the NYPD against some very clever planning and a well-timed street festival.

The movie also reunites Lee with the one actor most identified with his career, and he and Denzel Washington remain one of the great actor-director pairings. Lee at this point knows that sometimes, the only thing you need to do to make a scene magic is to put a camera on Washington and let him rip; there’s such an easy assurance to the way the pair work together to create David’s world that it’s almost a surprise to realize that this is only their fifth film together. Somehow, it seems like they’ve done more.

Beyond Washington unleashing his charisma on screen, the cast features another standout performance from Jeffrey Wright, as his character lives and dies in the conflict between panic over his missing son and his undying fealty to David. A perfect detail: Paul is almost exclusively seen wearing Stackin’ Hits-branded track suits and T-shirts, his loyalty to his employer on an almost equal playing field with his faith.

ASAP Rocky, meanwhile, may play an aspiring artist trying to get David’s attention, but his performance is very much that of an actor first, even when the scene draws on his natural rapping talent. He’s almost unnerving, at certain points, in ways that speak well for his future career in this realm.

Highest 2 Lowest doesn’t explicitly draw a parallel between Lee’s own career and David perhaps feeling like he’s lost his touch (something which more than one character accuses David of). Yet there’s a power to it that comes from an auteur who knows just how good he is. Whereas BlacKKKlansman and Da 5 Bloods were stories that felt more politically driven (all too aptly, given the times during which they were made), Highest 2 Lowest lacks that angle, perhaps thanks to getting greenlit in a post-pandemic/pre-2024 election period of time.

Instead, it’s a filmmaking flex that establishes just how good at the fundamentals Lee remains. At this point, there aren’t a lot of genres he hasn’t played in, proving as adept with a concert film like David Byrne’s American Utopia as he is with documentary — and so when he takes on a project like this, his confidence makes the results, for lack of a better word, delicious. A rich feast for cinephiles, filled with love for the craft that makes movies like this possible.

Highest 2 Lowest debuts in theaters beginning Friday, August 15th. Check out the trailer below.