When director Spike Lee and star Denzel Washington come together on a project, they do not miss. The Oscar-winning colleagues and friends have previously made four excellent films together. From 1990’s riveting Jazz drama Mo’ Better Blues to the 1992 powerhouse that was Malcolm X, through the dazzling 1998 father-son sports drama He Got Game and 2006’s entertaining heist thriller Inside Man, Lee and Washington have proven to be one another’s cinematic good-luck charm. With their latest electrifying collaboration, Highest 2 Lowest, that successful streak continues.
The story’s source material is the 1959 novel, King’s Ransom, by Ed McBain. The book tells the tale of a wealthy businessman facing a profound moral dilemma after his son is kidnapped. The twist being how the kidnappers mistakenly grabbed his chauffeur’s son. The novel explores the ethical conflicts of whether the businessman should pay the ransom to save someone else’s child and the personal and financial repercussions of whatever path he takes.
Akira Kurosawa brought McBain’s novel to the screen in 1963’s High and Low, a film rightfully crowned as one of the director’s masterpieces. Kurosawa constructed a powerhouse picture using minimal settings while containing the human drama and nail-biting tension in masterfully framed widescreen images. Adapted by Ryûzô Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Eijirô Hisaita, and the director, High and Low had a lot to say within its standard “pulp” plot; exploring a conflicted soul while making pointed observations on the economic and social class divisions in Japan.
As great stories and cinematic symmetry brought Kurosawa and his frequent lead actor Toshiro Mifune together for many films, Highest 2 Lowest reunites Lee and Washington for the first time in 19 years. To their credit, the duo waited for the right film to fit their untarnished working relationship.
As did Akira Kurosawa with his many adaptations of great literary works (Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky), Lee and screenwriter Alan Fox pay proper homage and respect to both McBain and Kurosawa. The essential plot remains, as Lee brings the story into the modern world of 2025 New York City.
A magnificent Denzel Washington (His best work since 2016’s Fences) is David King, a legendary music mogul with “the best ears in the business.” King has leveraged every penny of his net worth to buy back control of his record label. The hope is to save it from being gobbled up by another corporation and to keep the company’s original intent, to preserve the sanctity of creation by real artists and to promote Black excellence in the music world.
King’s most trusted friend, chauffeur, and makeshift “fixer”, Paul (Jeffrey Wright), is also considered a member of the family. King is Godfather to Paul’s son, Kyle (Jeffry’s actual son, Elijah Wright), who is a member of a college-prep basketball program along with King’s son Trey (Aubrey Joseph). The widowed husband and father has a record of incarceration and credits King with saving his life. Paul knows the deepest of King’s personal and professional secrets and is trusted with them.
After Kyle takes a headband from Trey and wears it for the rest of the day, the kidnapping mixup is set.
Once King receives an anonymous call that his son has been taken, the police enter the scene and the commentary regarding class structure and how society treats former felons comes to the forefront.
When the kidnap victim is believed to be Trey, the police are kind to the mogul and his terrified wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera). They vow to stop at nothing to bring their son home safe. When speaking to Paul, the cops are impatient and aggressive. They treat him as if he were still incarcerated. After discovering the kidnappers took the wrong son, the police continue to disrespect Paul and fail to tolerate his understandable emotional outbursts, constantly treating his kidnap case as “lesser” than when it was believed to be the millionaire’s son.
Wright is a masterclass of rage and resentment towards a legal system that colors anyone with a prison record as a suspect for eternity. To watch him stand his ground against the bigoted police is something to behold. When Denzel Washington is at the top of his game, it is near impossible to steal the screen. Jeffrey Wright stands tall and commands every second of his time. Wright’s work here is nothing short of an Oscar-winning performance.
Denzel’s “King David” (as he is referred to in the press) battles his conscience, as he struggles with the decision to pay the 17.5 million dollar ransom to save Paul’s child. Doing so would put him, his family, and his business in financial ruin. As the media paints him a coward (Lee gets some sharp digs at social media “keyboard warriors”) and with his life’s work on the precipice of destruction, whatever decision he chooses will have serious consequences.
Denzel Washington is tremendous as he navigates his character’s flaws and insecurities. David King is a ruler teetering on losing his throne and his family. At this moment in his world, what’s right is wrong and what’s up is down. Washington exudes charisma, using nearly every facet of his versatile skills to present a man on the other side of 60 who still has the fire of the young entrepreneur who built a fortune. Denzel’s performance burns across the screen, but he never goes over the top. King deals with each emotion as it comes and refuses to accept nothing but victory. The audience is with him every step of the way, even when his callousness threatens to overcome his soul. It has been too long since we have seen one of the best actors to ever do it, truly DO IT. Washington’s 5th role for Spike Lee will go down as one of his finest.
Lee stays close to Kurosawa, as High and Low presented the ransom exchange aboard a train. Highest 2 Lowest goes farther by creating a tense and thrilling sequence where King is on a speeding subway heading to the ransom dropoff, after deciding to pay. With undercover cops following him and the tracker on the money bag, the train becomes packed with fired-up Yankee fans. As the fans get wilder, the moment intensifies until Barry Alexander Brown and Alice C. Johnson’s editing amplifies the building ferocity of the moment and syncs with the nonstop drive of the pounding train. The cross-cutting between the action and the Puerto Rican Day parade concert (a fiery musical performance by the recently deceased Latin Jazz legend Eddie Palmieri), rises to an almost unbearable intensity. This riveting sequence is Lee’s French Connection moment in the sun.
Cinematographer Mattew Libatique shoots Lee’s beloved “Neuvo York” in glorious wide shots and popping color schemes. Beaming with the director’s civic pride, the NYC of Highest 2 Lowest is always in motion. One of Lee’s best traits as a filmmaker is to show the diversity of his city. There are many ingredients that make up the uniqueness of a Spike Lee Joint, but New York City will always exist as a vibrant supporting character.
Composer Howard Drossin fills in for Lee’s usual collaborator, Terence Blanchard. The fully orchestrated score pulses with powerful bass drums and bold brass declarations, while Scottish bagpipe compositions blend flawlessly amongst Drossin’s powerful creations as they play against the backdrop of Lee’s vision.
Spike Lee is a born filmmaker and proves it time and time again. Pick any film that bears Lee’s name and you will see a director in love with the art of cinema and the borderless possibilities of storytelling. His is a vision unlike anyone working today and his drive to tell important, yet entertaining, stories beams in every project.
Full of powerhouse drama, suspense, naturalistic humor, and the slightest pinch of Blaxploitation homage, Highest 2 Lowest is Spike Lee at his most confident. The director honors Kurosawa’s original while entertaining the audience and assuring that every single frame is an unmistakeable Spike Lee Joint.
Highest 2 Lowest
Written by Alan Fox (based on the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low and the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain)
Directed by Spike Lee
Starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, Elijah Wright, A$AP Rocky, Michael Potts, Dean Winters, LaChanze, Ice Spice.
R, 134 Minutes, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, A24, A/Vantage Pictures
