Spike Lee directs Denzel Washington through a labyrinth of power, pride and music.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Spike Lee’s deep and powerful love for New York City is on display once again in “Highest 2 Lowest,” a loose remake of the Yokohama-set 1963 Akira Kurosawa thriller “High and Low.” In his fifth collaboration with Lee, including “Mo’ Better Blues” “Malcolm X,” “He Got Game” and Inside Man,” Denzel Washington steps into a role originally played by the legendary Toshiro Mifune.
Building on this memorable pairing, the film not only recalls some of the screen’s most iconic director-actor collaborations, but it also reminds us that Mifune played the Macbeth figure in Kurosawa’s 1957 Shakespeare adaptation “Throne of Blood” and that Washington more recently played the role in 2021 in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” In “Highest 2 Lowest,” the two-time Academy Award-winner is at it again, playing another flawed monarch, David King, a great and powerful man from the mean streets of the Bronx. On the cusp of a “King Lear”-like twilight, David remains forceful, relevant and resourceful, keeping the wheels of his recording empire, “Stackin’ Hits,” turning—if a touch more slowly than in his prime.
The rap world’s version of Clive Davis, David has graced the cover of Rolling Stone and countless other magazines. He shares a penthouse in a sleek, sail-shaped Olympia Dumbo building with his beautiful, devoted wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera, “Godfather of Harlem”) and their 17-year-old son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph). Trey’s best friend is Kyle (Elijah Wright), son of David’s right-hand man and driver, Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright). Under the guidance of charismatic Coach Fox (former Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers player Rick Fox), Trey and Kyle play basketball together.
David’s home is lined with Basquiats—including the prized circular Charlie Parker tribute “Now’s the Time” (Jeffrey Wright portrayed Basquiat in the 1996 biopic). Though he flinches at the mere mention of the “Celtics,” David also boasts a sprawling collection of expensive sports memorabilia. Like Lee, 68, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay of 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman,” “King” David is at the height of his power—and, by the design of time and circumstance, poised for the kind of dramatic fall that comes with aging.
The film’s plot is as noir-ready as Kurosawa’s 1963 semi-classic. An attempt to kidnap David’s son Trey fails. But the perpetrator, whose street-savvy voice we hear on the phone, has abducted Kyle by mistake and wants the same amount of cash from David (in Swiss francs for some reason), and in scenes reminiscent of a quintessential New York City thriller, Joseph Sargent’s 1974 “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (which was remade in 2009 with Washington), David takes the cash in a backpack on the subway to deliver the money himself. He travels from Brooklyn to Yankee Stadium with a large and vocal Yankees crowd (“Boston sucks” is a chanted refrain).
Much of “Highest 2 Lowest”—Lee’s second remake, following 2013’s “Oldboy”—feels a little too curated (an apartment door labeled A24?). Too much time is spent decorating surfaces with art and memorabilia from Lee’s own collection. Washington’s aging mogul routine fits a little too perfectly. The original “High and Low” screenplay was based on Ed McBain’s 1959 novel “King’s Ransom.” Lee’s updated screenplay, however, is credited solely to playwright Alan Fox. The film opens with a glorious rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'” from the Broadway musical “Oklahoma”—a stylish touch that’s both deeply rooted in New York City and delightfully cheeky for a crime film about an aging emperor of hip-hop.
As aspiring rap artist Yung Felon, music video veteran A$AP Rocky burns up the screen. Cinematography by art-film veteran Matthew Libatique (“Black Swan”) paints New York City as a churning, thriving metropolis. Wendell Pierce’s role is far too small, while Dean Winters, LaChanze, and John Douglas Thompson deliver solid performances as NYC police detectives. Yes, that is Rosie Perez from Lee’s 1989 landmark “Do the Right Thing” appearing in the Puerto Rican Day scenes. When the soundtrack cues James Brown’s all-too-on-the-nose “The Payback,” we’re reminded how much Bronx blood still runs through “old boy” David, and “Highest 2 Lowest” threatens to turn into a fourth “Equalizer,”—which, frankly, wouldn’t be a bad thing. One wonders: why hasn’t Lee directed one of those yet?
‘Highest 2 Lowest’
Rating: R for language throughout and brief drug use.
Cast: Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, A$AP Rocky
Director: Spike Lee
Writer: Alan Fox
Running time: 133 minutes
Where to Watch: Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, Landmark Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner Theater, Showcase Cinemas in Randolph and Dedham
Grade: A-
Boston Movie News 