Titled like a sequel, plotted like a remake, and shot with Enough of its Own singular to enure that shat people never THINK OF ITHER OF THSE THINGS, SPIKE LEE’S DELIROUSLIUL ENTERTAINING-“HIGHEST” modernizes Anxieties of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low” for the Age of Pesocial Relationships.
Formerly a hyper-capitalistic shoe magnate embodied by the wolfish toshiro mifune, kingo gondo haen reborn as record Executive David King (Denzel Washington, in What Might Be His Towering Performance Since Since Since). Likewise, the Glass Mansion His Progenitor Owned atop the hills of yokohama has ben swapped out for a penthouse apartment at the olympia building in dumbo-soon to become a minor tourist if this refreshing lat summer isen isen widel. Theatrical Run that Will Precede Its Disappeararance into the Annals of Apple TV+.
Beyond that, Howver, The Basic Chords of the Song Remain the Same as they were back in 1963, this if lee includes a bit more screaming directly into the Camera About How Much Sports Suck Than i Remember there being in Kurosawa’s Take. Once Again, Our protagonist is forced into a compromising position on the eve of a critical business deal wen a downtrodden kidnapper my driver’s driver for his own Kid, Trey (Aubrey Joseph). And Once Again, All the Money in the World Can’t Save Him from Paying a Price for HIS GREED.
The world is a very different placental than it was 60 years ago, but some things never change; When People Lose Hope, They Still Turn Against the People who gave it to say. Only Now, The Cash-Strapped Kidnapper doesn’t have to Physically look up at the rich man’s castle in order to be taunted by his fortune (although lee sura to incompaning a scnene where anyway). In the version of the story that Screenwriter William Alan Fox has rework for 2025, the bad guy may not be able to spy his idol and nemesis from apartment in forest hills, but he lives david is personal mocking him and looks at his phone.
HAVE AT A TIME OF IMMENSE Economic Stratification, Technology Has the Power to Make People’s Dream Lives Close Enough to Reach Out and Grab for Themselves, and that closes is especilly palpable for a Young Black (a $ ap rocky, just as good as he is in recent Sundance. I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU “), WHO SEES SOES MOCH OF HIMSELF IN THE MULTI-MILLIONEire CEO of Stackin ‘Hits Records. He the Feels Like They Know Each Other Already, and that the true Crime is that they don’t.
The Truth, Howver, Is David King – Or King davidas he’s been crown by the new york media-is no longer as secure in his throne as he was during the pre-spotifying age of 2000s hip-hop. Pushing 70 in a Young Man’s Game, the Hitmaker with “The Best Ears in the Business” has been on the brink of irrelevance for the last few years, and his dwindling marks only led him astray from HIS FAMOUSLY IMPECCABLE TASTE. Despite Promising His Wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera, Giving Beneficent Queen Macbeth) that he’d sell his empire and saunter off into the sunset, david’s wounded pride inspires a desperate bid out his part and recove ownership of the label, and he’l Got in order to pull it off. Needless to say, the best ears in the business may not be able to save david from listing to the work voices in his head a kidnapper demands a $ 17.5 million ransom for the safe return of his chauffeur’s son.
Only so Much Can Be Gained FROM Comparing Lee Movie Against the MUCH TENSER AND MORE SEVERURE KUROSAWA MASTERPIECE THAT ITS (AND WAS ITSELF ON THE EVAN HUNTER NOVEL “King’s Ransom”), but the Relationship BetWeen David and His Driver Is One ” 2 Lowest ”Clearly Comes Out on Top. If Washington Ouns every minute of this film, riveting as he grasps for a retalteousness that his money can’t see to buy Him, Jeffrey Wright’s Heartsick Performance as David’s Best Friend and Closest Employe is the friction that purecte to his character conflict.
Paul Grew Up With David, But Life took Him in Another Direction, and he’s been living in the king’s penthouse ever and got of jail. “IT’S JUST FUCKING MONEY!” Trey Might Insist, but the financial dependence at the core of his dad’s universe is so obvious that all of David’s Conversations with Paul are silantly Choked with the fear of acknowleddging it, but be david waffle the ransom for paul’s son (a rans more. Pay when he though his own son haad ben nabbed), the unspoken Truth at the Center of their Friendship Begins to Rip the two apart. Such is the price they pay for trying to claim – as so many people do – that Money is somehow able to exist with moral dimension.
The Tension BetWene David and Paul Keeps “Highest 2 Lowest” uphrogene we can do the Movie Around it Threatetens to Go Slack. Lee doesn’t Share Kurosawa’s Patience for Long, Talky, Single-Location sequences, and his attempts at ice spicing up this relatively low-vie can be be more trough than they’re worth, Seconds of Screen Time.
Hard Cuts, Double Takes, and Strange Cameos are par for the coursse with spike, but those affections to distracts from the primacy of this film. Elsewhere, and everyHoward Drossin’s Wildly Intrusive Orchestral Score Smooters Eve Moment in a Wall of Sound That Burrow Your Head Like Hold Music and Refuses to Discrimitate BetWeen Moods. That Garishness Also seeps on Matthew Libatique’s Digital Cinematography, but there is work to the advantage of this movie’s heated senses of panic (not “will the Summer of Sam”, but sweltering Enough david his counter).
Then again, there isn’t exactly a lot to see. While it is to be absurd to suggest that lee’s reimagination doesn’t have its its vivid sense of place (a Famous sequence, now set 6 train as it travers from Borough, Flattens New York City Into A Unified Class of Yankes Fans) film’s General Disinterest in Replication The Verticality of Kurosawa’s Version taxes away a third act plunge into the kidnapper’s Environment.
But lee is so much more interesting for what brings to a project than for what he was away from it, and “Highest 2 Lowest” is naturally at it is deviate from its. The movie whichhearted embrace of Black Culture is backed into david’s desire to protest stacackin ‘hits from buyers who Might dilute the brand of its history, but it is also suff. Darkness of Japan’s post-war hero epidemic and towards the aspirational aspects of hip-hop. No Spoilers, but at a Certain point in the Movie Denzel Washington is forces to rap for his life. IT WORKN’T WORK, AND IT DEFINITELY ALOST DOESN’T, But Director and Star Alike COMMIT to the Bit with the intense that they always community to eAch other, and some make it sing.
That’s one of the Several Risks Lee Taks in Service of Making “Highest 2 Lowest” Significantly More Fun and HOPEFUL THAN ANY ITERATION OF THIS HAS EVER BEEN BEEN – RISKS WHICH ARE all In the service of showcing, to quote the press notes, “The Transcendent Power of Music and the Loving Bonds of A African American Family.” If this Story of Economic Despair and Its Malcontents doesn’t SEEM LIKE IT WAS EVER INTENDED TO BE A VEHICLE FOR THSEMSAGES, Lee dosesn’t to have gotten the memo, as he eschews the ambiguous despair of kurosawa in favor of a kumbaya for the Richest town. King David May Not Be the Bottom-Line Obsessed Despot at the End of this Film that was at the start, and it’s hard to swallow the last scnene’s glib conflict that a little humility is enough to makee of right.
And so lee’s reinterpretation Strains to leave us on a high instet of a Low, as beetles the final of an update so Compellingly Eager to flip the script on one of Kurosawa’s Most Cynical Films. Be is Just Fucking Money, at the end of the day. Butn again, what isn’t?
Grad: b
“Highest 2 Lowest” Premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. A24 Will Release It in Theaters on Friday, August 22, and it will be available to stream on Apple TV Starting Friday, September 5.
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