Denzel Washington takes a musical journey to explore a man’s
morality, legacy in Spike Lee’s latest
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HIGHEST 2 LOWEST
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“I’ll just throw on a Yankees cap and no one will know I’m Denzel Washington … At best,
they’ll think I’m just Mariano Rivera …” David King (Denzel Washington) takes a
very compromising ride in a scene from Spike Lee’s HIGHEST 2 LOWEST. © 2025 A24.
All Rights Reserved. |
What is the price of fame and success? Can you retain the love of what brought you fame when the demands of your industry make it so much easier to copy and paste what’s popular versus striving for something original and true? What is the common thread between someone who wants to achieve the high life and someone who simply needs the opportunity to achieve it?
While these are the central themes in Spike Lee’s modern take of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa film High and Low, the only question a potential movie goer needs to ask is the following: How much do you feel like diving into a tale as old as time that featuring a fresh coat of digital paint for the modern world? As music mogul David King, the man with “the best ears in the business,” Denzel Washington still knows how to take command of a scene, even when it may not be that compelling.
Then again, Spike Lee throws in all his trademark love letter to New York elements well to advance the story of King, forced to decide between his money and saving the life of Kyle (Elijah Wright), the son of his chauffeur, Alan (Jeffrey Wright). The film’s best sequences occur hen using music – the famed Puerto Rican Day parade accentuated by the sounds of the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra as a backdrop for a key sequence, an intense lyrical back-and-forth between King and aspiring rapper Yung Felon (A$AP Rocky) – sticking with the film’s exploration of what type of a man King is: Will he be one that that values money and his legacy more than doing what is right .. Or can he do what is right at the risk of everything he has worked so hard to achieve going up in flames? While not exactly a perfect journey, it is one audiences (especially longstanding Washington fans) are more likely to enjoy than not.
