Spike Lee, Denzel Take on a Classic Thriller

A new Spike Lee movie is still a calendar-clearing event; in the near 30 years since She’s Gotta Have It helped kickstart the Amerindie boom and introduced the world to a brash, trash-talking auteur from Brooklyn, he’s given us era-defining statements and eccentric sidebars, epic biopics and intimate performance movies, blockbusters and docs, highs and lows. His place in the canon is assured. It’s still always a dice roll, of course, and you never know which Spike you’re going to get — the crank, the cinephile, the cut-up, the muckraker, the messmaker, the master craftsman, the man with so much trouble on his mind — once the lights go down. Best case scenario, you get all of them, each one duking it out for stage time.

Highest 2 Lowest gives the majority of those Spikes a chance to step into the ring, though in terms of where this falls on the quality scale of his filmography, it’s ironically right smack dab in the middle. An adaptation of Ed McBain’s 1959 novel King’s Ransom — as well as a remake of/riff on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 police procedural take on the material, High and Low — it evenly splits the difference between straight-down-the-middle morality drama and an idiosyncratic mix tape of things Lee holds near and dear to his heart. Those expecting another Oldboy, his oddly stock 2013 redo of Park Chan-wook’s Oedipal nightmare, will be pleasantly surprised by how personal this feels. Folks hoping for the hug-the-corners heights of his extraordinary heist flick Inside Man (2006) may find themselves squirming restlessly in their seats. Regardless, it pairs him with one of his best collaborators, and once again makes the case that few actors do the right thing better than Denzel Washington.

Ah yes, Denzel. Comfortably settled into an éminence grise period that includes well-tested action heroes, larger-than-life villains, and Shakespearean heavy hitters, he’s now moved into an intriguing phase of his career that laces his usual rigor with a late-act looseness. We take his gravitas for granted, but he’s throwing curveballs into that imposing sense of authority in a way that feels unpredictable, volatile, compelling in a different way. He’s still the same capital-letter Movie Star he’s always been, still the same leading man you want to follow. There’s just an extra level of DGAF playfulness going on now. Once upon a time, you could look at a livewire, lit-fuse Denzel perfomance like the one that nabbed him an Oscar in Training Day (2001) as the notable exception. It’s turned into the rule. King Kong will never have shit on him.

Lee knows all of this. And after kicking off their fifth movie together with a swooping aerial shot of New York City set to Roger and Hammerstein’s anthem “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (it’s not quite the jaw-dropper of the Aaron Copland-scored opening of He Got Game, but it still brings the grandeur), the filmmaker gives his star a foundation to start flexing. In both the book and the Kurosawa film, the tycoon at the center of the story’s conflict is in the shoe business. Lee upgrades his version by resetting it in the music industry. Washington’s mogul David King, a.k.a. “King David,” is part Berry Gordy, part Irv Gotti, and a little bit of this guy minus the, um, other stuff. He has the best ears in the biz, though his heyday as the head of Stackin’ Hits Records has long past. Now he’s looking to make a deal that would allow him to buy back his old label and secure his legacy. King just needs to get corporate support and move some cash around. It’s more complicated than you’d think.

His wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), is concerned this is just an expensive ego trip. His son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), is angry that his dad is blowing off promises to be more present. His best friend and driver, Paul (Jeffrey Wright), just wants his boss to be sure he’s thinking everything through. Later in the day, a phone call comes in. Someone has kidnapped Trey. They want a hefty $17.5 million ransom, or else. King is prepped to give in to their demands, because nothing is more important to him than family. Soon, it’s revealed the criminals have abducted the wrong kid. They actually nabbed Kyle (Elijah Wright), Trey’s closest pal …and Paul’s son. The question becomes: Will King still pay the ransom?

This is the moment when Highest 2 Lowest starts to tackle the thornier issues behind its pulp-thriller surface, and despite both Washington and Wright digging into this dilemma like old pros (especially Wright, who modulates the character’s rage beautifully), it’s also the movie starts to struggle to maintain a pulse. There have been plenty of quirky Spike-isms spicing things up before then, from stylistic tics to a lot of flipped birds to Larry Byrd’s old team; this is the type of movie where someone breaking the fourth wall and yelling “Boston sucks!” feels totally on-brand. But it also settles into a groove that risks being sluggish and generic. It could be any police procedural, made by anybody with DGA membership, that just happens to star a legend.

Still, when Spike wants to turn it up, he rises to the occasion. There are two scenes in Highest 2 Lowest that feel like Lee is having fun while leaving his mark on his homage to a landmark crime flick. One involves the ransom drop, which involves the Bronx subway line, a backpack, a number of interchangeable pick-up men on motorcycles and an outdoor performance by Salsa icon Eddie Palmieri. Lee intercuts all of the action with Palmieri’s 1972 hit “Puerto Rico,” and you can feel the voltage levels going into the red. It’s a first rate interpretation of an old genre chestnut, the endless switcheroo hand-off, and the fact that it also feels like a political statement only makes it that much more exhilarating. A joyous public display of ethnic pride, taking place in the city that once housed a commander-in-chief now determined to strip America of its immigrant and/or nonwhite populations, shouldn’t feel like such a radical gesture. But these are the fucked-up times we live in.

The second takes place once King and the kidnapper finally meet face to face. Thanks to playlist of unsigned artists that his son had made him, the mogul identifies the culprit. It’s an aspiring rapper named Yung Felon, played by A$AP Rocky. King tracks him down to the studio where he’s recording, and two men square off over success envy, second chances, Felon’s simmering anger over being ignored until someone’s life is at stake. Then they begin trading freestyle battle-rap verses. None of the lines can be reprinted here in full, but trust us: Denzel has bars. It’s also the kind of swagger-off that the star excels in, and that Rocky uses to prove he can match when up against a guy who’s played Malcolm X, Macbeth and Gladiator II‘s power broker Macrinus. It ends sooner than you want it to, all the better for Washington to go full Equalizer on his scene partner. But it belongs in any future highlight reel of everyone involved.

It’s all over but the emotional healing and one last jailhouse debate after that, and Highest 2 Lowest gamely makes sure its loose ends are left tied. The impression is that you’ve just seen a great New York movie, with a great star turn at the core of it, and yet still feels like something’s missing. It’s ultimately an excuse to watch Washington go HAM. What’s more interesting is the coda Lee throws in just when you think the credits will start rolling. Throughout the story, we’ve seen Washington’s lion of the industry trying to recapture his roar, as well as looking at music business fixated on the bottom line and asking: Who stole the soul? Then he hears a new singer-songwriter croon, and suddenly, his sense of purpose feels renewed. It’s not hard to make the leap from the music industry to the moving pictures, and how that industry might have lost its way. Lee doesn’t need to ask who stole the soul there. He’s just looking to renew his own sense of purpose and make something both crowds and his own inner cinephile might dig. You have to applaud the effort.