Spike Lee counts the cost in ‘Highest 2 Lowest’

Matter cannot be created or destroyed. To receive something, you must be willing to give something up.

For record mogul David King (Denzel Washington) – a man dubbed as having “the best ears in the business,” with a trophy cabinet filled with dozens of Grammys – receiving his golden nest egg after decades of building an empire may come at the cost of his legacy.

The offer from a private equity firm would ensure long-term financial resources for the label, but could also squeeze out every last drop of respectability.

That push-and-pull is the most interesting aspect of director Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” which also includes a central plot about David’s son being kidnapped and held for ransom.

Going the same route that Steven Spielberg ventured with his 2021 version of “West Side Story,” Lee and screenwriter Alan Fox sidestep Akira Kurosawa’s legendary 1963 film “High and Low” to instead re-adapt the source material that was Ed McBain’s 1959 novel “King’s Ransom.”

It’s a wise move considering that Lee’s previous interaction with a celebrated piece of Asian cinema was his 2013 direct remake of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 South Korean film “Oldboy,” which ended up being a spectacular failure.

The setting has returned home to New York City, a place where only Martin Scorsese could potentially rival Lee as its most loyal cinematic artist.

“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” booms as the camera glides across the skyline of the concrete jungle – the nation’s biggest and most culturally influential city. The opening credits are tinted orange and blue, the colors of the New York Knicks. Yankees fans yell expletives defaming Boston, and the city’s Puerto Rican community comes alive for a performance by the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra.

King stands upon his Olympic penthouse balcony overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge when he gets an anonymous call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph). The $17.5 million ransom would eat up all the liquidity King needs to execute a secret plan to buy enough shares to stave off the sale of his company.

“There’s more to life than making money,” King says early in the film when his business partner begs him to accept the sale offer. He bemoans that the latter word in the term “show business” has grown exponentially more powerful.

One can feel Lee and Washington, marking their fifth collaboration in a partnership spanning over 30 years, personally decrying where the film industry is headed. Tweets about box office results, online debates about profitability, and articles about who’s making the most money illustrate that people are following dollar signs more than the art.

And yet, the money always seems to be the most important thing to King in this situation of life and death. In the same sentence where he asks the police how they’ll bring Trey home, he also asks how he’ll get his money back.

All money ain’t good money, and this specific bag of money sets off a chain reaction of mayhem. Lee steers a lean and mean machine during the film’s later stretches as King is on the hunt for the perpetrator.

The hour it takes to get to that point is much creakier. Lee’s penchant for a big score backfires as Howard Drossin’s intrusive instruments pull away our ears. Fox’s script is littered with rote dialogue, leaving performers like Ilfenesh Hadera as King’s wife to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the plot. And Matthew Libatique’s digital cinematography (likely done as a business decision due to Apple TV+ housing the film after a brief theatrical run) doesn’t contain any of Lee’s trademark vibrant textures.

Washington is still our greatest living actor, endlessly entertaining with a performance that contains the might of King Lear and the lyricism of NLE Choppa. He’s a master of controlling the chaos, something that King reckons with as his usual tight grip is rapidly loosened by external forces. Washington goes toe-to-toe with A$AP Rocky in a battle of bars, the pair each showing a new side to themselves. There’s also Jeffrey Wright nicely balancing weariness and wit as King’s right-hand man, Paul, who’s grateful that he’s been given a second chance after his imprisonment.

To have followers, you have to be a leader. Lee is a leader, still doing what he loves through methods only he could pull off, which is what art is all about. He’s still got plenty left in the tank, even as he comes to a point where time comes at a premium price. I’ll follow him up to the highest mountain, and down to the lowest valley.

A24 has released “Highest 2 Lowest” in theaters nationwide. It will be available on Apple TV+ starting Sept. 5.

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Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and more. He’s also the film critic for the Woodbury News Net. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.