“Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches, and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.” –dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip
Spike Lee has returned, he’s bringing Denzel Washington with him, and he’s delivered a modern remake of a Kurosawa picture. The film is called Highest 2 Lowest. Let’s go.
Washington plays David King, a notorious music mogul responsible for the careers of multiple Grammy-winning artists. Unfortunately, times have changed and the music industry has been reduced to leasing out songs to commercials and producing songs with AI. David — the producer and philanthropist known for lifting up black artists and boasting “the best ears in the business” — is doing his best to try and keep Stackin’ Hits Records a bastion of quality, where music and culture come before everything else.
To that end, David launches a last-ditch effort to try and buy enough shares to keep control over his company. The downside is that raising the necessary money means leveraging and selling pretty much everything David’s got to his name. Which means that if things go wrong and this gamble doesn’t pay off, David is effectively dead broke for life (to say nothing of the potential contract breaches). And things do indeed go catastrophically wrong in ways nobody could’ve expected.
The plot kicks into gear with the news that David’s son (Trey, played by Aubrey Joseph) has been kidnapped, and he’s being held for a multimillion-dollar ransom. But then comes the kicker: Trey wasn’t actually kidnapped. The kidnappers made a mistake and accidentally took Kyle Christopher (Elijah Wright), Trey’s best friend, David’s godson, and son to David’s chauffeur (Paul, played by Jeffrey Wright). I hasten to add that Paul is an ex-con out on parole and barely has a cent to his name. The kidnappers don’t care and keep on demanding the ransom for Kyle’s safe return.
Quite the dilemma we’ve got here.
David was all set and ready to pay the ransom to get his own son back, and yet he’s somehow more hesitant to pay the same amount to get his poor trusted chauffeur’s son back — what’s that about? Then again, it’s not exactly fair or just that any kidnapper should get $17.5 million richer for taking anyone.
Regardless, David can either get his godson back or he can get his company back. There’s not enough time or money for both. Is it really worth getting someone else’s kid back if his family loses everything, and Paul loses his own job in the bargain? Conversely, what if David buys out his company at the cost of someone else’s son? The public would eat him alive for such callous apathy and his label wouldn’t be worth much of anything anyway. What’s worse, if David does the right thing and gets lionized for it in the media, that wouldn’t translate into dollars fast enough to do him any good.
Basically, David is screwed no matter what he does. And it’s obvious right up front that was always the point.
Without spoiling too much about who and what the kidnapper is (he’s played by ASAP Rocky, I think I can tell you that much), his motivation is aggressively clear from the get-go. What we’ve got here is some black guy living in the NYC gutters, taking out his socioeconomic frustrations on the first rich guy who presents an opening. The “poor versus rich” populist angle is reinforced with a dazzling chase sequence, in which the ransom money is handed off between multiple bagmen in an intricate shell game, beating the wealthier and more powerful “legitimate” forces through sheer ingenuity and street knowledge.
But then comes the third act, in which the filmmakers suddenly remember that the ransoming kidnapper is supposed to be the bad guy. Naturally, this runs entirely counter to Spike Lee’s infamous populist streak. Thus the third act bends over backwards, trying every which way in a great goddamn hurry to make the villain’s motivation about pretty much every other thing else.
To sum it up as best I can, our antagonist is quickly and aggressively reshaped into a thematic foil for David. He wants the easy shortcut instead of putting in the hard work. He wants the guaranteed reward. He’s an entitled jackass who thinks he’s owed success. He only thinks of himself with no regard for anyone else. He’s only interested in art as a means of fame and money, and not an end in itself.
The climax goes scrambling in all manner of directions, throwing so many different themes against the wall. And pretty much the only thing holding it all together is Lee’s direction and Washington’s performance. Though ASAP Rocky makes for a four-color villain who’s deliciously fun to hate, that helps as well.
The cast is easily what makes this worth the cost of admission. I could watch Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright act against each other all day. Ilfenesh Hadera, Elijah Wright, and Aubrey Joseph all bring enough pathos to hold their own. And I’d be remiss not to mention Dean Winters, playing his character with just enough humor to work as a comic relief without taking away from his performance as a legit cop. Granted, the cops in this movie are only as competent as the plot needs them to be in the moment, but the actors do the best they can with what the script gave them.
Time and again — as one might expect from a Spike Lee joint — it’s the razzle-dazzle presentation that truly makes this film. Even when some of the editing intercuts and song choices seem out of place, the results are certainly interesting, if nothing else. (Case in point: Opening up the movie with “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” — famously the opening number from Oklahoma — while we’re looking at the New York City skyline was certainly a choice.) I might add that every last frame was crafted with a palpable love for NYC, and that infectious hometown pride informs the plot in some clever ways. My favorite examples come during the aforementioned chase scene, in which a subway car full of Yankees fans and a Puerto Rican street parade — complete with Anthony Ramos, Rosie Perez, and the late Eddie Palmieri all making prominent cameo appearances as themselves — are centrally involved.
Highest 2 Lowest is built around a genuinely fascinating moral conundrum, and it’s compelling to watch the characters try and sort it out one layer at a time. And that’s not even getting started on everything this movie has to say about racial identity, socioeconomic inequality, and life in the modern online world.
Granted, the thematic ruminations can spiral out of control at times, and the visuals can slip off the rails every so often. But the central idea of “not all money is good money” goes a long way in keeping everything focused. I need hardly add that while sheer force of charisma isn’t always enough to salvage a movie, the combined presence of Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and (believe it or not) ASAP Rocky is more than enough to do the job.
While the film would be every bit as good on home video, I’d go ahead and suggest a big-screen viewing for this one. If you’re in any position to see this in theaters, check it out.