Highest 2 Lowest review: Spike Lee's Kurosawa remake is an absolute mess
Let’s just say if Kurosawa’s film is the highest, Lee’s is the lowest.
Director Spike Lee and actor Denzel Washington have, over the years, made some remarkable movies. Think Malcolm X, He Got Game and Inside Man, to name but three. Sadly, Highest 2 Lowest cannot be added to that list.
A re-working of Akira Kurosawa’s masterly High and Low, which itself came from the 1959 Ed McBain pulp novel King’s Ransom, this is an absolute mess. Despite forceful performances from Washington, Jeffrey Wright and A$AP Rocky, a woeful, unintentionally hilarious script entirely destabilises the film. Let’s just say if Kurosawa’s work is the highest, Lee’s is the lowest.
Screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, it casts Washington as music mogul David King, the head of Stackin’ Hits Records. He is in the midst of a major business deal, looking to refinance his ailing company, when he receives terrible news: his 17-year-old son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) has been kidnapped.
Except that, as it turns out, that’s not the case. The kidnappers snatched the wrong boy, taking Kyle, the son of David’s long-time friend and chauffeur, Paul (Wright). The cash demand is extortionate: $17.5 million, in 1000 Swiss Franc notes.
Sponsored by Vue
Save up to 30% on the latest releases at Vue in 2025
Are you a movie lover who always wants to be up to date with the latest releases? Then you're in luck, as RadioTimes.com readers can enjoy new films at Vue Cinemas for less.
Customers will receive up to 30% off films with Vue Pass, as long as they have a RadioTimes.com account.
It's a great time for new releases, with films such as Wicked, Nosferatu, The Brutalist and Moana 2 taking UK cinemas by storm.
Head to your nearest Vue to catch these movies and more for up to 30% less if you're signed up as a RadioTimes.com member.
At first, King does not want to pay, but with the safely-returned Trey being blasted on social media (“Black Twitter is dogging me out!” he yells), the mogul comes to realise that it would be better PR to deliver the ransom.
Then comes the money drop on the New York subway, as the head kidnapper (Rocky) sends King on a wild goose chase. There are moments of excitement here, but also some terrible choices by Lee.
The drop has been timed to coincide with a Yankees game and also a live Puerto Rican music concert in the streets, which bizarrely features totally distracting appearances by Rosie Perez (the star of Lee classic Do The Right Thing) and fellow actor Anthony Ramos.
As King makes his way through the subway train, he’s also swamped by baseball fans screaming “Boston sucks”, with one particularly enthusiastic ringleader even yelling to camera.
More reviews from the Cannes Film Festival:
- Die My Love review: Jennifer Lawrence is superb in this absorbing and quietly devastating drama
- The Phoenician Scheme review: Wes Anderson's latest is a quaint tale of industrial espionage
With Washington looking like he’s in another instalment of The Equalizer, there are plenty of other moments that will make you either scratch your head, double take or laugh incredulously.
Such as when Washington arrives at the door of the kidnapper’s apartment, which is labelled ‘a24’. With movie outfit A24 one of the companies behind the film, an inside joke is all well and good, but it was supposed to be a moment of high tension. This entirely defuses that.
Another sequence sees King in his office, wailing to the pictures on his walls of music gods Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Stevie Wonder, asking “What would you do?”
As ever Washington is a charismatic presence, and Jeffrey Wright is typically accomplished as Paul, the man who has never asked for anything from his friend-boss, but now depends on him to get his son back. A$AP Rocky, albeit playing a role not a million miles from himself, shows he has the guts to go toe-to-toe with Washington.
Yet this is a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It barely works as a thriller. And nor does it really have anything interesting to say about social media or the music industry.
“Attention is the only currency these days,” we’re told, which is true to a point. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine, in today’s society, that anyone will care Lee has trampled over an avowed Japanese classic.
The film is so schizophrenic, it even finishes with a musical number. Well, why not? This is the sort of film that throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. Most of it doesn’t.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
James Mottram is a London-based film critic, journalist, and author.
