Highest 2 Lowest

Highest 2 Lowest is the new Spike Lee film, based on Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which was itself adapted from Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom. Where the original film has as part of its core, the angst and anxiety many people in post-war Japan were feeling, this version of the tale is very much of the American streets, and the lies people tell one another. As David King, a music mogul at a real crossroads both personally and professionally, Denzel Washington turns in his most complete and compelling performance in a decade. Yet, it is not just Washington who shines here. He is joined by the ever-superb Jeffrey Wright, a sparkling, strong llfenesh Hedera, the always dependable Dean Winters and Wendell Pierce, as well as John Paul Thompson and Michael Potts. ASAP Rocky turns in stellar work, with a difficult role that in lesser hands would descend into parody.

Courtesy Apple

As with every Spike Lee film, the work is impeccably photographed, this time by Matthew Libatique, featuring a more than fitting score from Howard Drossin. The editing, as in each Spike film, is expertly rendered toward telling a unique tale. Once more set in New York, this “Spike Lee Joint” has a clear sense of place, space and love for that checkerboard of a metropolis. Unlike many directors who shoot in such locations, Lee does not try to hide where his work is shot and where it takes place. This is a love letter to New York, in some regards, but moreover, it is rooted in a love of Brooklyn, with large portions set in neighborhoods like DUMBO, Fort Green/Clinton Hill, Carol Gardens and Brooklyn Heights.

This is a film that is well paced, without a wasted frame. Not in the same vein as, say, a George Miller action film, but in the way any great drama is. Like the Kurosawa original, Lee does not delay getting to know the characters or situation. Even more than in the original, this film brings us more immediately and intimately into contact with the who, what, and where. It is the why that propels the rest of the film, leading to an intense third act that is as much about reckoning with oneself as it is outside threats. This is a wise, and mature work.

Courtesy Apple

For those wondering, if they’ve seen the original, why see this one, the answer is that while the very basic premise is the same, the approach and effects are significantly different, a fact that proves how a cultural and period lens alters perceptions. The two films exist toward different purposes, with the original being perhaps a bit more of a shaggy dog story, and this being something closer to a stage drama expanded for film. This is because he emotions here are heightened, in ways even the original did not attempt.

Washington, playing King, allows the audience to feel each moment of desperation, consternation, regret, anger, doubt, self-hatred and more. He is matched in intensity and mirrored by the rest of the cast, notably Wright, Hedera and Rocky. The three characters they play form a spine on which the flesh of this work hangs, both comfortably and, at times-intentionally-not so comfortably. There are bitter truths to be had here, and the rest of the cast gets to play off what these characters are given. This is one of the strongest scripts and ensembles Spike Lee has worked with in decades.

Courtesy Apple

Highest 2 Lowest is a film that is both assured and rendered with clear detail. Smart, never taking the audience for granted or insulting them, this is a work that breezes by its two hour run time, leaving viewers with what is all too rare these days, a sense of satisfaction for having witnessed a masterpiece.

Highest 2 Lowest is now playing in select theaters and is streaming on Apple TV+.