‘Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Spike Lee's Back on Home Turf

New York Times

3 days ago

The haves and have-nots face off in Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest,' a slippery thriller about money, conscience, accountability and what it means to be good and just. For David King, a wildly successful music giant played by Denzel Washington, talent has begot money has begot a patrician lifestyle. He and his family live in a Brooklyn high-rise overlooking an East River that here seems more like a moat. Art by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kehinde Wiley adorns the family walls, but the home's most jaw-slackening feature is its panoramic view of Manhattan. At sunrise, the city glows like gold; at night, it sparkles like crown jewels, like plunder.
Lee and his director of photography Matthew Libatique polish the city and David's life to a dazzling high gloss. Everything looks sleek and frictionless in David's world: his pad, his ride, his wife (Ilfenesh Hadera as Pam). It takes work to make a life gleam as brightly as this one does, though much of that labor remains offscreen. (One false note is that the only employee you ever see in the home is the chauffeur.) This world of surfaces draws you in as inexorably as Washington's magnetism does. When he smiles, it can feel like an invitation, which makes it easy to forget how quickly the actor's charm can turn into a steel trap.
Kings fall, though, from wounds self-inflicted and otherwise. And for David, everything changes after he receives a phone call from a stranger who claims to have taken his son, the teenage Trey (Aubrey Joseph). In many movies, that would supply more than enough intrigue, tears and detective work to fill out a feature-length nail-biter. Here, though, what fires up the story isn't the crime or the princely ransom that the kidnapper demands. Instead, the movie's urgency comes from what happens after David learns that the kidnapping hasn't gone as planned, a twist that forces him toward a potentially life-shattering ethical reckoning.
'Highest 2 Lowest' is based on Akira Kurosawa's drama 'High and Low' (1963), a contemporary adaptation of Ed McBain's 1959 procedural novel 'King's Ransom.' The Kurosawa film stars Toshiro Mifune as a hard-bitten executive who's plotting to seize control of his company when a kidnapping disrupts his plans. Written by Alan Fox, Lee's version more or less sticks to the original film's outlines, its bipartite structure and protagonist's schemes. Washington's King has a plan to take back the label that he built, which has brought him riches and put him on the cover of print magazines — honors that suggest that his moment has long passed.
The first half of 'Highest 2 Lowest' maps David's realm. He's on his balcony when the camera — after a series of swooping aerial views of the city set to 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'' — drops down for a closer look at him. He's talking animatedly on his cell, his shirt glowing like a beacon in the early light. Once inside the apartment, things fall into place as Lee tours its sumptuous trappings, its enviable art, fine collectibles and Pam, who has the impeccable styling and personality of a boutique mannequin. Pam wants to write a hefty check for a good cause; David has other plans for what is clearly his money, not theirs.
Lee gives this introductory first half of the movie an efficient pace that dovetails with David's insistent, at times hurried rhythms. The character is on a mission to get his deal settled, and the director has his own agenda. There's a lot to enjoy in this section, mostly David (mostly Washington), whose easygoing exchanges with others, especially other men, convey camaraderie but also an unyielding, dominating will. The casting is uneven, but there are enough solid supporting players throughout to keep the story's machinery greased and to convincingly play off Washington. He ups his game when Wendell Pierce, as one of David's business associates, briefly swings by for a master class in scene partnering.
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