Once the undisputed leader of the music industry, producer David King (Denzel Washington) finds his throne threatened unless he can convince business partners Gabe (Wendell Pierce) and Alex (Frederick Weller) to sell their shares of Stackin’ Hits Records to him and avoid a sellout to rival studio, Stray Dog.  Through some creative accounting, King secures the funds needed to become the majority shareholder, but when his son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), is kidnapped and held for a $17.5 million random, the future of the company is once again thrown into question. 

For Apple Studios and A24, Spike Lee directs Highest 2 Lowest, a modern adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa crime classic, High and Low (1963), but more accurately, a modern adaptation of Evan Hunter’s novel “King’s Ransom,” penned by screenwriter Alan Fox; a first-time feature writer.  With involvement from hot shot New York City based distribution company, this very New York City set story from a director who holds New York City close to his heart, secured a micro-release on only 200 odd screens across the country ahead of its bow on Apple TV Plus.  

Opening with sweeping shots from cinematographer Matthew Libatique of New York City while “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” plays out, it marks and interesting and almost meditative choice for Lee, a choice that becomes muddied in how much David is, thematically speaking, asked to represent.  The irony of the needle drop is top notch, not only from the juxtaposition of the dusty plains of Oklahoma to the bustling city scape of NYC, but also, for anyone who is familiar with either Kurosawa’s or Hunter’s source material, this will be far from a “beautiful morning” for David.  What this song choice does do, however, it set a unique precedent for the film to examine the complete influence of African American culture on Western Music.  It is a covert central theme to the film that does not go quite far enough as one would hope given the accolades which the scripts tells us that David has amassed across his storied career, and likewise, it is a theme which Lee is clearly interested in pursuing, but he never pushes it far enough to show just how prevalent and influential African American musical tractions have in New York City, one of the undisputable crown jewels of the United States, made so because of its multi-culturalism. 

While Highest 2 Lowest may stumble in that thematic arena, Washington powers through, despite a script that never lets him wax poetic about power and the influence of culture, not so much because of metaphoric trickery, but more so from just the general follies of a first-time scriptwriter.  The pedigree of the source material, coupled with Lee’s direction and influence, as well of production designer Mark Friedberg’s meticulous eye for thematic detail all pick up the slack and inform the story where Hunter’s script comes up sparce.  Unfortunately, much of that script comes off as an old man yelling at the clouds, as he saddles Washington with dialogue bemoaning modern technology, modern music, and all around coming off as a curmudgeonly father towards Trey, far beyond what is necessary to show the generational rift that naturally occurs between father and son.   

What is strange though, is that Hunter does not seem to really be looking at making any kind of true thesis here despite setting up that Trey has an ear for modern internet talent who are left on the outside looking in at the floundering traditional recording model, represented by his father, that is unwilling to cede its time-honored control of the industry.  Instead, it simply bemoans that modern artists just do not get it while asking Washington to fumble his way through basic technology.  Highest 2 Lowest opens as a frightful pitch of a Hollywood statesman rallying against the current state of the industry, and while this is a well which Hunter’s script will require Washington to return to time and time again, ultimately, it is not the central theme of the film which Lee set out to make and with both scriptwriter and director at odds on the theme, the film never really takes off in any meaningful way.  Thankfully, Washington, while serving the whims of the script, elevates his performance to something great, and this magnetism – coupled also with the counteracting mellow energy brought it by his scene partner, Paul (Jeffrey Wright) – is the thread that keeps us involved with the film; especially during the melodramatic first half in which Howard Drossin’s piano score infiltrates through so many scenes that is becomes inadvertently comical. 

Despite the rough start, Hunter, shakes off his proselytizing in the second half of the film and Drossin reworks his score’s approach to focus on the drama and the tension at hand.  The high water mark of Highest 2 Lowest comes in a tri-cut sequence as David carries the ransom money in a backpack on the subway towards Yankee Stadium for home game, the Puerto Rican day festival, and a police chase.  From this point to the end of the film, it takes a much more down and dirty turn, with Lee still having a firm hold on the reigns, but oddly enough, in the new terrain which proves to be much more unwieldy than the simple-by-comparison buildup up the first act, the film finds its stride as Lee is able to flex as a director more so than in his soap-operatic front half.  At a certain point, though, this extended sequence wears thin, mostly due to the incredible ineptness shown by the New York City police department, specifically Detective Higgins (Dean Winters), and had Lee – or Fox – had a more pointed attitude towards the class disparity between police and the populous, it could have proven to be an interesting plot, but through the necessity of the informing arc of the film, Highest 2 Lowest can not be the searing indictment that as an audience we have come to expect from an artist who was built his career on pointing out the alternative side of the justice, political, or social systems for the masses of marginally aligned Americans. 

Now, the film is not totally devoid of that nuance, because, as in Kurosawa’s classic and as in McBain’s novel, it is revealed that it is Kyle (Elijah Wright), Paul’s son, who is actually abducted, and Higgins is not afraid of drastically changing the tone of the investigation when it is Trey that returns to the high rise apartment amid a media frenzy, but in 2025, it is not quite enough to merely point out the two versions of the justice system which is pledged to protect and serve the public so long as they fall into a certain tax bracket.  In this way, it seems like Lee, with almost 4 decades of work behind him, is turning his back on some of his career-defining themes in favor of cheap shots at the ever forward movement of time. In reality, those same themes and dissections are still present, it is just that Highest 2 Lowest is taking a much more simplistic approach because Lee himself was not the one plucking away at the typewriter. 

It may not be fully fair to lay the expectations of the storied Lee on the shoulders of the freshman Fox, or the weighty responsibility of living up to the Kurosawa classic – something Lee has been adamant from the start that this is a reimagining and not a remake of – but ultimately the result of this collaboration on this text as seen on screen is all we have to go on.  In much the same way that the film tells a tale of two classes, the film itself has a clear dividing line from interior and dramatic first half to exterior and thrilling second half.  Demarcated by Libatique’s changing of stocks from something more glossy and pristine while we are in King’s penthouse suite to a grittier, textured stock when we are out in the streets, it is this back half where the film truly shines as Lee’s love for the city – the real city in all of its scrappy, bohemian, fanaticism – takes center stage.