Illustration by Michael DiMilo
New York City Serenade: Film Review of Highest 2 Lowest
★★★1/2
By Geoff Carter
There’s nothing like a Spike Lee joint. The man has a style like no other. Over the last forty-some years, the man has made masterpiece after masterpiece. Lee’s cinematic oeuvre ranges from poignant family dramas like Crooklyn to biting satire like Bamboozled to historical biopics like Malcolm X, to harrowing documentaries like 4 Little Girls, to crime dramas like Inside Man, and now, to his latest thriller, Highest 2 Lowest.
The common thread running through this incredibly diverse body of work is Spike Lee’s relentless, sympathetic, and sometimes ruthless examination of the African American experience within and outside that community. Crooklynexamines the dynamics of an African American family growing up in 1970s Brooklyn. Jungle Fever and Do the Right Thing take long hard looks at the tangled web of race relations we weave without even trying. He has unflinchingly taken on the direct and indirect implications of racism throughout his career, transforming the true story of BlacKKKlansmaninto a dark comedy about how blind hate can really be.
Lee has paved the way for a new generation of African American filmmakers including Ryan Koogler, Steve McQueen, Jordan Peele, Barry Jenkins, and Ava DuVernay, and more. He is a pioneer.
His latest, Highest 2 Lowest, is a thriller that examines the complexities of entrepreneurship, family, ethics, and fame. Its protagonist, David King (Denzel Washington), is a giant in the New York City music industry. The film opens with a lovely sequence of dawn breaking over Manhattan featuring the song “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from the musical Oklahoma—an incongruous choice, to say the least.
We are introduced to Mr. King, his beautiful wife Pam (Ifenesh Hadera), his best buddy Paul (Jeffrey Wright) and his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) and Kyle (Elijah Wright), Paul’s son and Trey’s best friend. They live in a beautiful apartment in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood.
King is in the middle of a deal to sell his Stackin’ Records company, but is beginning to have second thoughts, telling Pam he’d like to keep it and get back to his roots discovering and developing new talent, even though to do so would entail him putting up his penthouse and art collection as collateral.
He and Paul drop off their boys to a basketball clinic. While at his meeting, King receives a call saying his son has been kidnapped and that he must pay a $17.5-million-dollar ransom for his safe return. He immediately calls the police, who set up a tactical station in his living room.
When Trey turns up safe, and King discovers that Paul’s son Kyle was the one who was mistakenly kidnapped, he balks at paying the ransom for his best friend’s son. His friend Paul implores him to save his son. Trey King pleads with his dad to save his best friend and his partner Patrick (Michael Potts) who also makes the point that not paying the ransom will hurt the company’s image.
King needs the money to consummate the deal to save his company, which, to him, is the major component of his identity. After a long agonizing night of reflection, he decides to pay. What follows is part crime thriller—including a wonderful chase romp through the subway and the Puerto Rican Day Parade (complete with Rosie Perez), part love letter to New York City, and part mano a mano rap battle confrontation (reminiscent of a Western gunfight). The kidnapper Yung Felon (ASAP Rocky) turns out to be a young rapper who has idolized King, whose indifference has left him embittered and angry. He envies King his wealth and success and attacks him for it.
Lee has delved into the caper/crime genre before with the wonderfully contrived Inside Man, but Highest 2 Lowest, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic High to Low, takes the genre one step beyond our usual expectations. His version of the story transcends the genre while simultaneously paying it homage, delving into the bowels of the music industry—paved with shards of shattered dreams—and its effect on African American culture.
His David King has made a success in the business, yet to preserve his success, he is unwilling, until persuaded, to part with his money, even to save the son of a good friend. And to King, this money and his success as a producer (the best ears in the business) equals his identity. King’s penthouse apartment (decorated with some of Spike Lee’s own art pieces) is testament to his talent, guts, and audacity, qualities he shares with Yung Felon. While King’s stubbornness and arrogance have helped him achieve his success, they are the qualities that very nearly bring him down.
On the flip side, Yung Felon, like most aspiring rappers, only has broken dreams in his back pocket. Attacking King, his idol, could be interpreted as an act of resentment, inadequacy, or even self-hate. Or black-on-black crime. Spike Lee has addressed class issues within the Black community before, particularly in School Daze, although here it is almost sublimely inserted into the detective story plot.
Lee is famous for his use of original and sometimes splashy cinematic technique, as when he places actors on rolling dollies (as in Jungle Fever or Crooklyn) to simulate an ethereal sort of movement. Here he occasionally duplicates a single shot from a slightly different angle to create a sense of doubling, perhaps suggesting an affinity–or doubling–between King and his antagonist. They are two sides of the same coin.
David King is a successful music producer, but he is not the most sympathetic of characters. Denzel Washington’s portrayal gives the character a finely calibrated complexity but one which is lacking in humanity. While his ruthlessness is key to his success, it does not engender love. His His wife Pam (who reminds me somewhat eerily of Melania) comes across as a spoiled rich kid. Trey is the pick of the litter in this family. For all that, Highest 2 Lowest is a highly entertaining film. It is beautifully shot and the homages to the city, Brooklyn, and the Puerto Rican Day Parade are great fun. King and Paul’s independent detective work that leads them to Yung Felon is gripping, yet there seems to be an emptiness at its core.
Jeffrey Wright does a fine job as Paul, but the character is not fleshed out enough to give the actor much material to work with. The detectives working the kidnapping case are portrayed as inept and unimaginative—stereotypical foils to King’s ingenuity.
Highest 2 Lowest is an engaging thriller, has tantalizing pieces of cinematic genius, is beautifully made, but is somehow wanting. David King seems closed off and inaccessible, and even in his most generous moments, lives up to the imperiousness of his name.
Still, a Spike Lee film is always worth seeing, and this is no exception. H 2 L is entertaining, exciting, providing invaluable insights into the American—and African American—experience.