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Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
With 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Spike Lee Gives Us Another Great New York Movie
Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest Credit - David Lee No filmmaker loves the dirty old town that is New York more than Spike Lee. Some of us who live there will return from a day out and about—a day whose adventures might include traversing streets strewn with trash, or catching news of some terrible shooting or stabbing (though that happens less often than you'd imagine)—and still think, This, and nowhere else, is home. Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest, playing out of competition here at the Cannes Film Festival, is a new entry on the scroll of great New York films. It's smart, hugely entertaining, and profound in a way that's anything but sentimental. With Akira Kurosawa as his guiding star—the film is a reimagining of the Japanese master's 1963 High and Low, a police procedural with a deep moral underpinning—Lee has made a film that feels modest and grand at once, the kind of movie you can see on a Saturday night just for kicks and still be thinking about the next day. Denzel Washington plays David King, a record-company mogul who was riding high in the early years of the 21st century but whose company is now barely breaking even. That company, Stackin' Hits Records, is up for sale, but King doesn't want to give it up. Instead, he's scrambling to buy back his controlling stake. His wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), knowing the state of the couple's finances, isn't so sure, but she supports her husband. Their plans shift drastically when King receives a phone call informing him that the couple's teenage son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), has been kidnapped; his best friend Kyle (Elijah Wright), the son of King's chauffeur and closest friend, Paul (Jeffrey Wright, father of Elijah in real life), has gone missing as well. Within minutes, a phalanx of cops shows up at the couple's swanky apartment; they advise King on how to proceed. Tension hangs in the air like the luxe mod chandelier suspended from the penthouse's impossibly high ceilings. And then Pam and David learn that Trey has been found. The kidnappers grabbed the wrong kid; they've got Kyle instead. Read more: Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel Highest 2 Lowest has been adapted rather faithfully from Kurosawa's version, which was based on a novel by Evan Hunter. (The crisp screenplay is by Alan Fox.) That means the initial moral quandary—should King feel obligated to pay a $17.5 million ransom, money he doesn't really have, to save a kid who's not his own?—is resolved rather quickly. But King's hesitation to save his best friend's child, even in the face of Paul's anguish, tells us something about him. As a guy who's built a fortune signing artists who've got the goods, King has the best ears in the business, as one character after another reminds us. But even he balks, for more than a few hours, at the idea of saving his friend's kid. He's the kind of guy who'll do the right thing—eventually. That's not a damnation of him; it's just a reminder that it's human nature to put oneself first. We all stumble, at one time or another, on the path to generosity, and Washington is terrific at capturing the texture of all those little doubts that hold us back; he can turn a modest squint into a signal of intense moral reckoning. And he has more than one terrific scene with one of his costars, the roguishly charismatic A$AP Rocky: they play off one another with the crackling competitiveness, and camaraderie, of ace jazz musicians trading eights. The rest of Highest 2 Lowest fulfills every expectation you might want from a modern Spike Lee movie. Though Lee gave us one of the greatest New York movies of all time—and one of the greatest movies of all time, period—in 2001, with 25th Hour, he hasn't made a movie set in New York since 2012's Red Hook Summer. This one, shot by Matthew Libatique, is gleamingly beautiful right from the opening sequence, in which the city unfolds, in all its iridescent pigeon-feather splendor, as 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'' soars on the soundtrack. As tunes go, this one, with its half-homespun, half-surreal reference to corn growing as high as an elephant's eye, is the opposite of urbane. But the incongruity is the point: as an expression of spontaneous daybreak joy, it's unparalleled. Similarly, Howard Drossin's magnificent score—sometimes majestic, sometimes achingly melancholy—follows the movie's shifting moods perfectly. Every choice Lee has made pays off handsomely, and the movie's action centerpiece—involving a subway chase, a Puerto Rican Day celebration featuring salsa great Eddie Palmieri, and a motorcycle relay of exquisite precision—might be the most beautifully edited sequence you'll see all year. (Lee's editors here are Barry Alexander Brown and Allyson C. Johnson.) We knew from the beginning that Lee was a rulebreaker and a groundbreaker. But he's also a traditionalist, an inventive and energetic one. He honors those who came before him; he's studied them, taking their lessons to heart. That's how you get a lustrous entertainment, one with a soul, like Highest 2 Lowest. Sometimes great craftsmanship, especially in a mainstream film, just makes you want to shout. Doesn't anyone else get tired of the workaday TV and movies getting pushed before our eyeballs week after week, fodder made with just a base level of competence, if that? Lee has made some pretty imperfect movies during his long career—but so have most of the greats. He may go through periods where he makes films that are just OK, but then he raises the bar. And then he raises it again. As others' standards sink, his climb higher—higher, even, than an elephant's eye. The top of the Empire State Building is next. Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
With Highest 2 Lowest, Spike Lee Gives Us Another Great New York Movie
No filmmaker loves the dirty old town that is New York more than Spike Lee. Some of us who live there will return from a day out and about—a day whose adventures might include traversing streets strewn with trash, encountering a sleeping vagrant stinking up a subway car, or catching news of some terrible shooting or stabbing (though that happens less often than you'd imagine)—and still think, This, and nowhere else, is home. Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest, playing out of competition here at the Cannes Film Festival, is a new entry on the scroll of great New York films. It's smart, hugely entertaining, and profound in a way that's anything but sentimental. With Akira Kurosawa as his guiding star—the film is a reimagining of the Japanese master's 1963 High and Low, a police procedural with a deep moral underpinning—Lee has made a film that feels modest and grand at once, the kind of movie you can see on a Saturday night just for kicks and still be thinking about the next day. Denzel Washington plays David King, a record-company mogul who was riding high in the early years of the 21st century but whose company is now barely breaking even. That company, Stackin' Hits Records, is up for sale, but King doesn't want to give it up. Instead, he's scrambling to buy back his controlling stake. His wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), knowing the state of the couple's finances, isn't so sure, but she supports her husband. Their plans shift drastically when King receives a phone call informing him that the couple's teenage son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), has been kidnapped; his best friend Kyle (Elijah Wright), the son of King's chauffeur and closest friend, Paul (Jeffrey Wright, father of Elijah in real life), has gone missing as well. Within minutes, a phalanx of cops shows up at the couple's swanky apartment; they advise King on how to proceed. Tension hangs in the air like the luxe mod chandelier suspended from the penthouse's impossibly high ceilings. And then Pam and David learn that Trey has been found. The kidnappers grabbed the wrong kid; they've got Kyle instead. Highest 2 Lowest has been adapted rather faithfully from Kurosawa's version, which was based on a novel by Evan Hunter. (The crisp screenplay is by Alan Fox.) That means the initial moral quandary—should King feel obligated to pay a $17.5 million ransom, money he doesn't really have, to save a kid who's not his own?—is resolved rather quickly. But King's hesitation to save his best friend's child, even in the face of Paul's anguish, tells us something about him. As a guy who's built a fortune signing artists who've got the goods, King has the best ears in the business, as one character after another reminds us. But even he balks, for more than a few hours, at the idea of saving his friend's kid. He's the kind of guy who'll do the right thing—eventually. That's not a damnation of him; it's just a reminder that it's human nature to put oneself first. We all stumble, at one time or another, on the path to generosity, and Washington is terrific at capturing the texture of all those little doubts that hold us back; he can turn a modest squint into a signal of intense moral reckoning. And he has more than one terrific scene with one of his costars, the roguishly charismatic A$AP Rocky: they play off one another with the crackling competitiveness, and camaraderie, of ace jazz musicians trading eights. The rest of Highest 2 Lowest fulfills every expectation you might want from a modern Spike Lee movie. Though Lee gave us one of the greatest New York movies of all time—and one of the greatest movies of all time, period—in 2001, with 25th Hour, he hasn't made a movie set in New York since 2012's Red Hook Summer. This one, shot by Matthew Libatique, is gleamingly beautiful right from the opening sequence, in which the city unfolds, in all its iridescent pigeon-feather splendor, as 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'' soars on the soundtrack. As tunes go, this one, with its half-homespun, half-surreal reference to corn growing as high as an elephant's eye, is the opposite of urbane. But the incongruity is the point: as an expression of spontaneous daybreak joy, it's unparalleled. Similarly, Howard Drossin's magnificent score—sometimes majestic, sometimes achingly melancholy—follows the movie's shifting moods perfectly. Every choice Lee has made pays off handsomely, and the movie's action centerpiece—involving a subway chase, a Puerto Rican Day celebration featuring salsa great Eddie Palmieri, and a motorcycle relay of exquisite precision—might be the most beautifully edited sequence you'll see all year. (Lee's editors here are Barry Alexander Brown and Allyson C. Johnson.) We knew from the beginning that Lee was a rulebreaker and a groundbreaker. But he's also a traditionalist, an inventive and energetic one. He honors those who came before him; he's studied them, taking their lessons to heart. That's how you get a lustrous entertainment, one with a soul, like Highest 2 Lowest. Sometimes great craftsmanship, especially in a mainstream film, just makes you want to shout. Doesn't anyone else get tired of the workaday TV and movies getting pushed before our eyeballs week after week, fodder made with just a base level of competence, if that? Lee has made some pretty imperfect movies during his long career—but so have most of the greats. He may go through periods where he makes films that are just OK, but then he raises the bar. And then he raises it again. As others' standards sink, his climb higher—higher, even, than an elephant's eye. The top of the Empire State Building is next.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Denzel Washington Finds A Great Role And A$AP Rocky Finds A New Career In Spike Lee's Entertaining Kidnap Drama
Yet again a filmmaker has gone to the throne of Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa for inspiration. Among the lauded director's films Hollywood has turned into English-language adaptations are Seven Samurai, which became The Magnificent Seven twice (including once with Denzel Washington); Rashomon, which became Paul Newman's The Outrage; Ikiru, remade a few years ago as Living; Yojimbo, which led to an uncredited inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars; and 1958's Hidden Fortress, unquestionably an inspiration for George Lucas and Star Wars. Now chalk up another one with Spike Lee's new take on Kurosawa's 1963 drama High and Low, in which Toshiro Mifune played a shoemaker executive who is torn between paying the ransom to his chauffeur's son's kidnapper after the criminal nabbed him by mistake instead of the executive's son, who was safe. It becomes a moral dilemma, especially as the exec really needs the money himself to save his business. What would you do, it asks? More from Deadline Cannes Film Festival 2025 In Photos: Wes Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, 'The Phoenician Scheme' & 'The Richest Woman In The World'Premieres &More Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Breaking Baz @Cannes: Spike Lee Croons Rodgers & Hammerstein On The Beach But Tunes Out As Talk Turns To Him Making A Movie Musical His Next Project And that is exactly the setup for Lee's thrilling and entertaining new drama Highest 2 Lowest, which has been reset to the contemporary music industry with Washington as David King aka 'King David,' a hugely successful music mogul who finds his Stackin' Hits Records is about to be taken over and now has plans to start a new label and return to the top of the charts. When his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) and godson Kyle (Elijah Wright in a film debut) and son of his best friend and driver Paul (Jeffrey Wright) are mistaken for each other by the inept kidnapper, that criminal demands David pay the $17.5 million ransom anyway or Kyle dies. Again, what would you do? RELATED: The riveting answer to what David will do is played out in this tense cat-and-mouse game. Should he refuse, he is told social media will just destroy him anyway for the heartless act of turning his back on his friend Paul and his son who are definitely living on a wildly different class level than the Kings do. But David is torn. He is convinced that a return to the top of the heap is imminent and all he needs is the money. Why give it up for someone else's child? His wife Pam (IIfenesh Hadera) is distraught at first, thinking the guy had their son, but now has definite ideas of her own about how to proceed. There's also a trio of NYPD detectives on the case (Dean Winters, LaChanze, John Douglas Thompson). The tension mounts as they try to lure the kidnapper, who slyly barks his demands and tries to one-up David in some phone encounters. Will they be able to trace the calls? Can they find him? Who is he? RELATED: Well, it turns out to be a guy whose life's dream was to be discovered by King David and handed a contract for Stackin' Hits as the next great rapper. His name in Yung Felon, and he is played in a sensational supporting turn by A$AP Rocky, whose romantic partner Marisol (Isis 'Ice Spice' Gaston) might hold the key to finding him. RELATED: The first film shot in Lee's native NYC in more than a decade is one of his best. It has been in various forms of development over 30 years for the likes of David Mamet, Chris Rock and others, and now Washington helped get Lee on board with it for a new take from screenwriter Alan Fox, who adapts material from Ed McBain's book King's Ransom and the original Kurosawa movie. The premise fits like a glove with the music industry, and Washington is smooth as silk, delivering one of his best recent performances as a man caught in an impossible moral quandary. With his fifth collaboration with Lee (Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man, Mo Better Blues), he really finds his groove on this one to be sure. His initial showdown in the recording studio through the music producer's glass window as Yung Felon is putting down a track is worth the price of admission, with Washington turning the encounter into a bravura rap that becomes one of the actor's finest screen moments. A$AP Rocky, who was seen in the film Monsters, proves he can go toe-to-toe with Washington and shows he has dramatic chops to shine here. Wright as always is superb, as is Hadera. RELATED: As is the case with most Lee joints, this one has a superb, soaring musical score from Howard Drossin that really feels NYC to its core. Matthew Libatique's sharp cinematography also shows off New York City to its full potential here. The film had its world premiere Monday night Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Lee debuted his masterpiece Do the Right Thing 36 years ago today. Producers are Todd Black and Jason Michael Berman. Title: Highest 2 LowestFestival: Cannes (Out of Competition)Distributors: A24 Films and Apple Original FilmsRelease date: August 22, 2025Director: Spike LeeScreenwriter: Alan FoxCast: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, IIfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, A$AP Rocky, Dean Winters, La Chanze, John Douglas Thompson, Isis 'Ice Spice' Gaston, Michael Potts, Rick Fox, Elijah WrightRating: RRunning time: 2 hr 14 min Best of Deadline Broadway's 2024-2025 Season: All Of Deadline's Reviews Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winners Through The Years Deadline Studio At Sundance Film Festival Photo Gallery: Dylan O'Brien, Ayo Edebiri, Jennifer Lopez, Lily Gladstone, Benedict Cumberbatch & More
