Exuberant and chaotic, "Highest 2 Lowest" proudly bears the Spike Lee signature as a top-tier project.
Spike Lee's latest film, "Highest 2 Lowest," is a 2025 reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 classic, "High and Low." Set in contemporary New York City, the movie relocates the original story from post-war Japan and replaces the shoe company executive with a powerful music executive, David King, played by Denzel Washington.
The plot centres around David King, a music mogul whose son, Trey, is kidnapped by mistake. The kidnappers intended to abduct the son of King's chauffeur and closest friend, Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright). Faced with a moral dilemma, King must decide whether to pay a $17.5 million ransom to save Paul's son. This decision forces him to confront issues related to wealth, power, and values, as paying the ransom could jeopardize a major business deal.
By setting the story in New York's diverse urban environment and focusing on the music industry, the film distinctly addresses issues of race and class through the lens of contemporary American society. The class disparity and racial dynamics come into sharp focus through the kidnapping's mix-up between the wealthy executive's family and his chauffeur’s family, highlighting socioeconomic inequalities and systemic tensions.
ASAP Rocky delivers one of the movie's best performances as an up-and-coming rapper named Yung Felony, who is the fierce voice of a new generation of Black musicians eager to work with and perhaps dethrone the David Kings of the world. Jeffrey Wright plays Paul, David King's driver and oldest friend.
Spike Lee infuses the film with his passion for New York culture, incorporating elements like sports and music to deepen the thematic resonance on race, class, and urban life. The movie's title, "Highest 2 Lowest," is a metaphor for class difference, and Lee delights in pointing out and amping up tensions between his characters.
The movie's class critique runs deeper still, with the structure of the story requiring David to leave behind his life of high-altitude luxury and descend to street level. Race is a factor in the movie, as it often is in Lee's works, with fame and fortune representing a double-edged sword for a Black man in the music business.
Justin Chang, a film critic for The New Yorker, praised the film for its exuberant set pieces and rich cultural references. Spike Lee's "Highest 2 Lowest" pays homage to New York City and America's cultural richness, with a ransom scene set on an elevated train during Puerto Rican Day.
The movie's plot collides with a massive parade during the ransom scene, complete with a performance by the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra. Tragically, Palmieri himself passed away earlier this month at the age of 88. Ilfenesh Hadera plays David King's wife in the movie, and Aubrey Joseph plays Trey, David King's teenage son.
"Highest 2 Lowest" opens in theaters this week and begins streaming on Apple TV+ on September 5. The movie is a remake of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa classic "High and Low." In the movie, someone kidnaps Trey's best friend Kyle by mistake.
The movie explores the struggle to stay relevant with age and to go on making meaningful art in a world that's often hostile to it, with Lee giving the drama a rich personal dimension. In the end, "Highest 2 Lowest" updates Kurosawa’s narrative to a 21st-century American context by exploring race and class through the kidnapping drama set in the music industry and New York City’s urban landscape, while maintaining the core moral tensions of the original story.
In the realm of entertainment, Spike Lee's latest work, "Highest 2 Lowest," delves into general news topics such as race and class, while immersing viewers in the world of movies-and-tv, specifically the music industry. This captivating film offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the 1963 classic, "High and Low," by Akira Kurosawa, with a plot that unfolds in crime-and-justice narrative, involving a kidnapping and a ransom demand.
