Highest 2 Lowest review — Spike Lee, I love you!

Sometimes, reacting to a movie is totally irrational. It just hits you in the moment, like a flash. It could be the music, the acting, the pace. It could be what the whole thing means; an artist just outright unashamedly going at something.

This is why I left Highest 2 Lowest so elated. It’s a flawed movie, but only in the good sense, where its flaws can be reflected on in decades as part of its character. This is more than just an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s classic High to Low, it’s a reimagining. It’s also a New York movie beyond anything; at times, I even wondered if Lee was more interested in shooting the city than his characters. The opening features the Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge, and there’s an excellent segment of a Puerto Rican street fair and The Bronx. There’s absolutely no need for Spike Lee to shoot a New York Knicks fan shouting, “Fuck you, Boston” into the camera, but he does it anyway. That’s because the story – about a music mogul whose son gets kidnapped – feels like an afterthought. Spike’s sentiments as a veteran with opinions on social media, AI, the younger generation, sports echoes out of the dialogue. You can tell: in the plot segment, the conversation is wooden. When characters are ranting, venting, and speaking out, it’s gold. Especially in one confrontation between A$AP Rocky and Denzel Washington. What a face off!

As for the story, the first half is a Sirkian soap opera with melodramatic speeches and ramblings and orchestral music that matches the tone of the scene. It’s OK. Maybe it’s even quite funny at first, though I’m unsure if that’s what Spike intended it to be. It feels a lot like some parts of Jungle Fever or School Daze. But the second half is where the action kicks in, and you can feel Lee having a riot – going from gun violence and shadow boxing to James Brown. I was grinning the whole way through, and all I could think of from then, up until the film’s ending, is this: CINEMA!