The great director cycle continues. John Ford’s westerns of the 30s and 40s as well as William Shakespeare inspired Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese director, who made a series of samurai films as well as some other modern fables. Kurosawa’s brilliance has spread exponentially, to people like Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and George Lucas, who ripped off Kurosawa’s plot a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Spike Lee is the latest artist to be inspired by one of the greatest directors of all time, and arguably, has made one of the best adaptations of his work to date, and that’s saying something!
Highest 2 Lowest, like Kurosawa’s High and Low, is about a corporate executive, David King (Denzel Washington). King’s a music mogul in a rut, getting ready for a big monetary risk of a play to try to gain back control of his company. The timing could not be worse though, as he receives a call from a strange number, saying his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) has been kidnapped. The ransom is $17.5 mil, a crazy amount of coin, drawing in the NYPD and David’s brother Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright) to help in any way they can to figure out who is doing this and why before the ransom needs to be paid.
The Disney remakes have bastardized what an “adaptation” actually is. It’s not a soulless cash grab shot for shot remaking of the original film no. It’s for an artist to be inspired from the original, and do something different with the material. There’s plenty of Kurosawa in Highest 2 Lowest to be sure, with many of the big moments using the same beats; Spike Lee’s not an idiot y’all. But what makes Highest 2 Lowest special is how Spike changes the story to tell a much more EMOTIONAL fable. What was a half and half adult drama/police procedural transforms into a story about power, money, family, and culture. Spike’s changes blur the lines early and often, as David King’s forced to choose frequently between all 4 of those competing dynamics that make him the man he is today. Lee’s choices instantly make the stakes more exciting, and build as new wrinkles enter the picture. The big setpiece promised by the premise is very much a Spike Lee joint on the 4th train, with a character literally chanting “F*ck Boston” as they stare into the camera, of course. But the final confrontation Highest 2 Lowest builds too is something special only Spike Lee could conjure. It’s electric, emotionally raw, and forces the viewers eyes to open wider and wider to take in the mastery they are witnessing. Denzel is obviously great here, but Denzel’s scene partner elevates themselves to greater possibilities in their career because of their performance, matching one of the great actors of all time. TWICE!
Spike also makes this adaptation more emotional for himself, turning it into maybe his best love letter to New York City to date. The opening sequence rivals that of Woody Allen’s Manhattan, showcasing the Big Apple in all it’s glory, with majestic crane shots of the amazing lower Manhattan/Brooklyn skylines ending on a shot of Denzel high on his King’s perch. There’s your Highest. From there, Lee takes us on a journey 2 Lowest, but in this case, lowest doesn’t always mean worse. The big train sequence used Eddie Palmieri’s Puerto Rican sound and the Puerto Rican Parade AND a New York Yankees baseball game all fused into a beautiful cultural mess of music, sounds, faces, places, tastes, and treats. As exciting as the scene is, I was also equally content being distracted by how Spike rightly elevates this part of the city to equal that opening shot, because a Puerto Rican salsa/mamboing adds to New York just as much as David King trying to amplify young and hungry minority musicians to the mainstream. Even as we go lower, danger might increase, but the culture doesn’t go away; Lee makes it clear that even the lowest places are essential building blocks to what makes New York City the amazing place it is, housing potentially untapped talents with societal impediments and poor choices blocking their hopes and dreams. Spike’s cultural compass is finely tuned so well, that one of the key subplots of the film has to do with explaining how the best storytellers will always rise to the top, bringing who they are, and not who King loved ones, or society as a whole, wants them to be. I would love to see Woody Allen go that deep into the Bronx, ha!
All you need is the next big hit. Denzel’s David King says this somewhere in Highest 2 Lowest. No truer sentence has been told, and a great reminder to never count out the likes of Spike Lee or Denzel Washington when they decide they have story they want to tell. Who knows how many more Denzel/Spike Joints we’ll have. For now, I’ll enjoy the last toke and pass it on…to remind everyone to go see this great cinematic, musical, and NYC love letter for the ages!