Time for a double feature! No spoilers.
Based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low, Spike Lee’s newest film Highest 2 Lowest is the story of a wealthy man caught up in the attempted kidnapping of his son.
High and Low tells the story of a basically decent man, Kingo Gondo (played by the amazing Toshiro Mifune), caught up in a difficult situation. When the kidnapping occurs, he fully cooperates with police, and the second half of the story basically becomes a police procedural. The movie is black and white and visually stunning, focusing on meticulously composed shots to tell the story of a privileged family unwillingly pulled into a dark and desperate “underworld.”
Highest 2 Lowest, while retaining the basic story, is not just an “English-language remake,” as some would have it. Many, many aspects of the original film have been changed. Denzel Washington plays David King, a music mogul in New York. The police seem largely ineffectual, and so, instead of a police procedural, the second half of the movie becomes something of a DIY action vehicle for Washington and his close friend and driver Paul (played by Jeffrey Wright). Highest 2 Lowest is a love letter to New York, and this is one of the best parts of the movie, whether we are enjoying sprawling shots of the skyline, watching Eddie Palmieri play salsa at a Puerto Rican Day Parade, or feeling mildly insulted when an entire subway car of Yankees fans loudly and repeatedly disses Boston.
Is it a perfect film? No. It lacks some of the moral clarity and fierceness of the original movie, and the core theme of The Haves vs The Have-Nots has been somewhat dulled (possibly because Spike Lee is…very rich. I dunno.). The music score is distractingly weird, etc. etc.. However, it is fun, and it is a pleasure to watch Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and A$AP Rocky doing what they do very, very well in a movie directed by a master.
