'Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Spike Lee's Kurosawa Remake Splashy Exploration of Social Media and Celeb Culture
Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky give impassioned performances in a movie that tries too hard
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Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 feature film High and Low is a propulsive drama that borrows liberally from American film noir and police procedurals to, at its core, tell a story about the Japanese culture clash in the 1960s, capitalism, and morality. These are all themes that filmmaker Spike Lee has already played with in several of his feature films, so right away the desire to remake Kurosawa’s feature is questionable.
The end result is found in Highest 2 Lowest, a propulsive drama that tries to tell the same story, albeit reconfiguring Kurosawa’s themes for more contemporary looks at the generation gap, parasocial relationships, fame and social media, and Lee’s own cultural legacy. It’s a lot to parse and it can leave Highest 2 Lowest seeming jumbled and aimless, but when it zings in just the right way, magic happens.
David King (Denzel Washington) is the CEO of a once successful record label, touted as the man with “the best ears in the business.” But the literal kingmaker has little time for his wife and teenage son. But when David’s son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) is kidnapped, David is willing to put everything aside to save him…until it’s discovered Trey is alive and well and it is his chauffeur and best friend, Paul’s (Jeffrey Wright) child who is in danger.
The lilting strains of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma greets listeners during the opening credits, the first juxtaposition between the fantasy of American presented in that musical and the epic high rise where David and his family live. The metaphors run heavy from minute one. David, regularly referred to as King David by the people hoping to make a deal with him, is frustrated that when he and his son leave their house on the mountain Trey is only concerned with his social media followers. David sees those being followed on social media as leaders but wonders “Where are you leading them?” It’s an interesting conceit that runs throughout the movie, the line between David’s obligations to himself, his wife and son, his company, and the cultural legacy of his label, best known for curating the best in Black artistry.
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But these moments flirt with seeming hokey and overwrought. At one point a young girl auditions for David by singing a song about how he’s god. It is funny to hear David give shade to the company wanting to buy his, a thinly veiled Amazon, when this is technically an Apple production. And it doesn’t help that the musical cues are just as heavy and pointed as the dialogue. David enters a room for an innocuous scene and ominous music plays. He has a talk with his son and the score plays just as loudly as the dialogue, as if the audience needs someone holding their hand telling them how to feel.
The film adheres to the original Kurosawa plot fairly closely, right down to Mark Friedberg’s production design on the King penthouse mimicking the house on the hill Toshiro Mifune’s character lived in. And much like the original, the trajectories stay consistent: David is a workaholic trying to make a bid to buy his company and take back his legacy. The kidnapping happens as does the reveal that the kidnapper’s made a mistake. The first half of the feature becomes a moral quandary movie, wherein David has to decide whether to put up his seed money to save the life of a child that isn’t his…and what happens to him if he doesn’t.
But Lee’s interpretation lacks the tight pacing of Kurosawa that made Mifune’s character discussing his decision for over an hour engaging. Instead, Lee will cut to images of the family—marking time like chapters—spending time with the police, none of whom have real characters except for Dean Winters who is just “the douchey white cop.” The film picks up in fits and starts, but works best when Washington and Wright are discussing things or when Washington is just left to talk to himself.
This marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington and the actor continues to show why he works best with the director. His David King may have once had the shine and charm we’ve come to associate with Washington. Glimpses of his face on the cover of Time and The New Yorker showing off the actor in his youth. Instead, this is a character concerned with his legacy. David wonders if those buying his company care about the history, the artistry he was responsible for, a thinly veiled take on Lee himself. And yet when Washington has to bring those decades of power to the forefront—confronting his son after being told “it’s just money”—the audience is more than able to be scared of him. But Washington works best bouncing off Wright as Paul, an ex-con who’s turned his life around. Wright plays a supporting role but brings leading man power to it, particularly in the final third when he and Washington get to do more action.
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The outcome of the ransom is decided about halfway through the film, leaving an additional hour of story telling. The back third of the movie, the fallout of David’s decision to pay the ransom, is easily the strongest segment of Highest 2 Lowest and is where Lee feels more confident in veering away from Kurosawa while still holding on to the required beats of the original story. The introduction of A$AP Rocky as Yung Felon—there’s a lot of on the nose stuff—gives the movie a needed shot in the arm to cross the finish line. He makes a meal out of the character, an angry young man released from prison desperate to try to make it as a rapper. It’s where Lee’s sharpest critiques come, examining youth culture and their desire to make it quickly. As Yung Felon says, “attention is the only form of currency.” It’s a shame that he and Washington only have the one scene together, akin to Kurosawa’s film, as it’s the best moment in the movie.
Highest 2 Lowest is far from Lee’s best but it’s hard to top another, equally iconic, filmmaker. Highest 2 Lowest works best when it’s trying to say something different from its predecessor and that happens predominately in the final hour. The pacing makes this an arduous experience but, as previously mentioned, when it works it’s fire.
Grade: C+
Highest 2 Lowest is in theaters Friday.
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