‘Highest 2 Lowest’: Spike Lee’s Electric Reinvention of the Classic Kurosawa Film
Spike Lee is one of the best filmmakers that we have, still making films, has returned with Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington. Whether it’s the sun-soaked frames of Do The Right Thing or, more recently, BlacKkKlansman, Lee remains one of our most unique voices, having a strong presence within the culture of our past or present, and perhaps the most powerful craftsman for Black stories out there.
Despite all of this, it’s a significant task for virtually anyone to tackle a reinterpretation of the crime thriller masterpiece known as Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. The levels of creative prowess and parallels to the story in modern culture would need to be at an all-time high to create anything even remotely as impactful as the original 1963 version. Lee manages to put his spin on the story with a tremendous amount of thematic depth.
Highest 2 Lowest is a new take on the original story, shown through our modern reality. It is an in-depth look at culture through music and at how contemporary social media and parasocial relationships shape our view of the world. This through line, combined with subtle meta commentary on Spike Lee’s career, creates a distinctive take that feels special to him. The film gets off to a sluggish start, but soon becomes a funny, electrifying, and thematically rich reinvention of the original.
What’s Highest 2 Lowest about?
Highest 2 Lowest follows in the original’s setup of a kidnapper targeting a rich businessman and attempting to kidnap the man’s son for ransom, only for him to kidnap his chauffeur’s son by mistake. The blueprint of the setup remains the same, but there are small differences throughout the narrative.
This story follows music mogul David King (Denzel Washington), the billionaire and record-producing CEO at the top of Stackin’ Hits Records. He’s said to have the “best ears in the biz” among all other contemporaries. While he attempts to buy back the record company for all he can, something goes awry in his family life.
In an attempt to kidnap David’s son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), at a basketball camp, they accidentally kidnap the son of David’s friend, Paul Christopher (Jeffery Wright) instead. Now in the midst of peril, David must work with his wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), Paul, and the police to collect the ransom money to save Paul’s son.
Spike Lee’s film finds its groove after a rough start
Throughout most of Highest 2 Lowest’s first act, William Alan Fox’s screenplay follows High and Low in the most boring ways imaginable. The film goes beat for beat with the original story in the most “Do we need this?” type of ways. That, paired with surprisingly static direction from Lee, paints a worrying picture for the film. Luckily, the film starts to find its own rhythm, as Lee crafts a layered and precise thriller that feels like his own.
Whenever Spike isn’t mixing his own brand of humor into the film, the thriller aspect often gives shades of his work with Inside Man, with lots of dolly zooms and striking drone shots used throughout the runtime. Even framing-wise you can see Lee try and capture a similar vibe of blocking and the placement of the camera within the frame that Kurosawa did so well in his film; it’s to mixed effect at first, but it starts to come alive when the streets of New York City have never felt more lived in than when shot through Lee’s vision.
Comedically, the film has so many laughs and direct shots at the city of Boston that it’s hard not to have fun with it, even if you’re not familiar with New York at all. This all culminates in a standout sequence in the film’s second half involving the ransom money drop-off on the subway train with a Puerto Rican parade in the background.
The control of comedic and thrilling tones within it is some of the most impressive work Lee has made in his career. Even as the style of Spike Lee starts to shine more through the film, it’s far more interesting to see the thematic psyche that he brings to a present-day telling of this story.
The meta and societal commentary of Highest 2 Lowest
As mentioned previously in this review, David King is said to have “the best ear in the biz,” and the ideas of integrity vs. the artificial reality of our world percolate throughout Highest 2 Lowest. David King is a man who built his entire music empire on the soul and skill of knowing music that’s now being impinged on by corporate synergy, internet trends, and artificial intelligence.
“All money ain’t good money,” David once says in the film. It’s clear that these messages not only reflect upon the realities of art in today’s world but also on Lee’s view of his filmmaking and the lost soul of filmmaking as a whole, now with these new elements. It’s never a truly subtle thematic idea, as characters mention A.I. by word multiple times, but it really conveys what Lee is getting at with reinterpreting the story into a very different and new lens.
Denzel Washington is, of course, incredible as the film’s charismatic anchor, but I was more shocked that A$AP Rocky was able to go toe-to-toe with him in the final third of the film. Rocky plays the kidnapper who’s also the famous rapper “Yung Felon” in the film. Yung Felon looks up to David King and has wanted to be and work with him for years, but King was at his highest, and he was at his lowest.
The two actors have electric chemistry with one another. There’s a standout rap battle scene between the two, voicing their own frustrations about the situation and the harsh realities of life they’ve both found in different ways. This is one of Spike Lee’s most memorably conceived sequences.
Highest 2 Lowest isn’t just a plain redo of the Kurosawa film (even if it takes its time pulling away from that); it’s a wholly unique thematic reinvention of the concept altogether, with Lee’s signature style beaming through.
With Black culture at its center, electric set pieces galore, and a thematic core of preserving the heart of integrity and talent amidst the chaos of modern day, this reinterpretation could not be more different from the original film, and in the best way possible. This film is another strong and distinctive Spike Lee effort.
Highest 2 Lowest releases in select theaters August 15th and on Apple TV+ September 5th.
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