DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. In Spike Lee's new crime drama, "Highest 2 Lowest," Denzel Washington plays a New York City music mogul whose teenage son becomes the target of a kidnapping plot. The movie is a remake of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa classic "High And Low." "Highest 2 Lowest" opens in theaters this week and begins streaming on Apple TV+ September 5. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.
JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: Back in 2013, Spike Lee directed a disappointing American remake of the cult-beloved Korean thriller "Oldboy." He later all but disowned the movie, claiming it had been edited down against his wishes. To date, "Oldboy" is the only one of his films that doesn't bear the signature words, a Spike Lee joint. Now, more than a decade later, Lee has taken on a far greater Asian classic - Akira Kurosawa's masterful 1963 film, "High And Low." The remake is called "Highest 2 Lowest," and it's a Spike Lee joint through and through, a dazzling crime drama that boldly confronts issues of race and class, art and commerce, all set in a modern-day New York that pulses with music, color and life. It's blunt, a little messy and altogether glorious, and it couldn't be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker. Kurosawa's "High And Low" was itself adapted from Ed McBain's 1959 novel, "King's Ransom." And so there's a full-circle logic to bringing the story back to the U.S.
Denzel Washington gives one of his best recent performances as David King, a music executive known for having the best ears in the business. David lives in a swanky Manhattan penthouse with his wife Pam, played by Ilfenesh Hadera, and their teenage son Trey, played by Aubrey Joseph. One day, David gets a call from someone who says he's kidnapped Trey and demands a ransom of $17.5 million. As a police investigation gets underway, it's soon revealed that Trey is actually safe. His best friend Kyle was snatched by mistake. Nonetheless, the kidnapper demands the same amount for Kyle's safe return, placing David in a tricky position. If he pays the ransom, it will ruin him, jeopardizing a major business deal involving the company he founded, Stackin' Hits Records. If he doesn't pay, he has to live with his guilt forever, especially since Kyle's father Paul, an excellent Jeffrey Wright, is his driver and his oldest friend. In this scene, Paul begs David to pay the ransom and save his son's life.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HIGHEST 2 LOWEST")
JEFFREY WRIGHT: (As Paul) Listen. Beloved, I see all you do. And I could never stop thanking you for what you did for me. But I never really asked you for anything.
DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As David King) You never had to.
WRIGHT: (As Paul) That's right. That's right. You gave to me freely. I love you for that. Right now, I'm asking you for everything. I'm asking you for my life.
WASHINGTON: (As David King) Nah, you ain't asking me for life. Right now, you asking me for $17.5 million. That's all people do, is ask me for stuff. Can you give me this?
WRIGHT: (As Paul) Help my son.
WASHINGTON: (As David King) Can you give me that?
WRIGHT: (As Paul) That's your son, too.
WASHINGTON: (As David King) They just want me to pay. Stack hits. Pay for this. Give me that. Give me this. Put this on top of that, on top of this, on top of that, on top of this, on top of that and this and that.
(SOUNDBITE OF OBJECTS BANGING)
CHANG: As a crime saga, "Highest 2 Lowest" is solid, but the genre mechanics are less interesting than the underlying ideas. And if the dialogue in Alan Fox's script hits a few clunky notes early on, that's because it takes time to set up those ideas and maneuver them into position. As in all his best work, Lee gives the drama a rich personal dimension. At 68, he's made a film about the struggle to stay relevant with age and to go on making meaningful art in a world that's often hostile to it.
Even before the kidnapping, David feels uncertain about his place in an entertainment industry where talent and creativity have taken a back seat to the whims of AI and social media. Race, too, is a factor, as it often is in Lee's movies. Fame and fortune represent something of a double-edged sword for a Black man in the music biz, where commercial success can become shorthand for the establishment or a sellout. One of the movie's best performances comes from the charismatic hip-hop artist ASAP Rocky who, as an up and coming rapper named Yung Felony (ph), is the ferocious voice of a new generation of Black musicians eager to work with and perhaps dethrone the David Kings of the world.
As with Kurosawa's "High And Low," the title of "Highest 2 Lowest" is a clear metaphor for class difference. And Lee, as always, delights in pointing out and amping up tensions between his characters. You can't help but notice how politely the cops treat the rich and famous David versus how shabbily they treat Paul, who's poor, Muslim and a nobody by comparison. But the film's class critique runs deeper still. It's built into the very structure of the story. In order to pay the ransom and hopefully catch the kidnapper, David must leave behind his life of high-altitude luxury and descend to street level. And what he rediscovers in the process is the glory of New York, a city that Lee knows and loves as deeply as any filmmaker working today.
The ransom scene is one of the most exuberant set pieces in any recent Lee movie, and it pays homage not just to the city, but to the thrilling and irrepressible cultural richness of America itself. Lee stages the sequence brilliantly aboard an elevated train on a hot summer day, specifically Puerto Rican Day. And so when the action spills out into the traffic below, the plot collides with a massive parade, complete with a joyous performance by the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra. Palmieri himself died earlier this month at the age of 88, and it's nice to see his great legacy saluted in this wonderfully entertaining movie.
BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Spike Lee's new film, "Highest 2 Lowest." On Monday's FRESH AIR, Bowen Yang. He's nominated for an Emmy for his performances on "Saturday Night Live." He'll talk about working on the show, his obsession with pop culture, which is why he co-hosts the podcast "Las Culturistas," and the contrast between his life and the lives of his parents who emigrated from China. I hope you can join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUERTO RICO")
ISMAEL QUINTANA: (Singing in Spanish).
(Singing) Puerto Rico. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
