Do you love movies? 

Wait a minute, let’s break down what I mean by that. By “movies,” I don’t just mean disposable entertainment you can idly watch while folding laundry. I mean a cinematic experience that grabs you, forces your ass to focus, says Pay attention to me. By “love,” I don’t mean a fun thing to talk about for a few minutes. I mean the swoon you get, that little adrenaline rush that tickles your brain and heart. And by “you,” I mean you.

Movies that spark that feeling with that degree of intensity are rare. It’s because of a peculiar alchemy that exists when the right actor and the right director work together repeatedly. That professional fusion pushes each party past their limits. The end result is a film that goes beyond good or great to something classic. That can only be done by the best.

A few of the best to ever do it?* Well, that would be:

• Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro
• Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst
• Wes Anderson and Bill Murray
• Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks
• Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio
• Adam McKay and Will Ferrell**
• Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson
• Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart
• Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune

Oh, and, and, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. How good are they? They made the jazz drama Mo’ Better Blues, one of the greatest biopics ever Malcolm X, the college basketball drama He Got Game, and the crackerjack heist thriller Inside Man. That’s four outstanding films, and now they’ve made a fifth, Highest 2 Lowest. 

They say that David King (Denzel Washington) has the best ears in the business. Anybody can hear music, but he understands it on a cellular level. He knows when music will be massive, the kind of success other record producers would sell their souls for. Those ears are why his company, Stackin’ Hits, has made him one of the greats.

But greatness rises and falls. Years earlier, David sold off a percentage of his stakes in the company. That decision profited him money, an awesome penthouse, and an opportunity to live in rarefied air. It cost him control, and David finds himself restless, thinking of the old days when he created trends instead of watching them pass him by, and contemplates buying his label back. His wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) wonders if it’s a smart move, and wonders if this isn’t the right time to travel, enjoy life, and watch their teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) grow up.

David makes a decision, on his own, as is his custom. He’ll do what he can to regain majority control of Stackin’ Hits, no matter how much of his money it costs. Unfortunately for him, he’ll need that money for something far more pressing, His phone buzzes. A man on the other end tells him he’s kidnapped Trey, and wants $17.5 million for his safe return.

The NYPD, led by Detective Bridges (John Douglas Thompson), Detective Higgins (Dean Winters), and Detective Bell (LaChanze) immediately investigate. The first thing they discover is that the kidnapper is not exactly a master criminal. It turns out Trey is fine. It turns out that Kyle (Elijah Christopher) is the one who’s actually been abducted. He’s a close friend of Trey’s and the son of David’s driver, Paul (Jeffrey Wright). It pushes David into a hellish choice – should he pay the ransom of someone else’s child if doing so will destroy his company?

Right after my screening of Highest 2 Lowest, I was chatting with a publicist. He asked me what I thought of the film, and I told him that while I loved it, the front half was perhaps ten to fifteen minutes too long. I was wrong. That first half needs to be slower to immerse us into David’s world. It shows us the rhythms of his life, how he interacts with family, business associates, and people who ride the line between friends and employees. We need to feel it all so that when the kidnapping happens, it’s more jarring. We spend time hanging out with David and, a glance at Spike Lee’s filmography reminds us that the vast majority of films he makes are, to some degree, hangout movies. This film is no different. To be clear, it’s a gorgeous hangout movie that pulses with life and energy. Lee lovingly shoots the skyline of New York City, neighborhoods, subways, everything that makes New York, New York.*** 

The second half jacks up the energy significantly. Watch the sequence where David travels to hand off $17.5 million in Swiss Francs packed into a bag. He’s tense enough as it is in the subway, and the enthusiastically belligerent Yankees fans trash talking Boston aren’t helping. The tension gets higher as the train enters a raucous neighborhood celebrating Puerto Rican Day. The lush score by Howard Drossin is replaced by a banger of a number by the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra. The music, the crowd, the motion of the subway, the movements of the kidnappers and David is superbly controlled by Lee. It might be the best sequence he’s shot in his career.

This film is a retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low, and that film is an adaptation of the 1959 Ed McBain novel “King’s Ransom.” With that much ground to cover, screenwriter Alan Fox had his work cut out for him. He does excellent work, and never allows the characters to be overwhelmed by the plot. The story is consistently pushed forward by choices, delays, and non-choices. It’s a feature that’s always been well done in Lee’s work, and you always know who the players are, what they want, and what will happen if they fail.

Whether or not his films are successful, Lee always gets good performances from his casts. Here, we’ve got Jeffrey Wright as Paul, a hardened ex-con who tries to live a decent life, raise a good son, and wonders if David is less of a friend and more of an employer, one who will make decisions based on his financial interests. I liked Dean Winters’ snide Detective Higgins and the cool professionalism of John Douglas Thompson as Detective Bridges. A$AP Rocky holds his own nicely against Washington as a young rapper whose ambition threatens to overwhelm him. Speaking of Washington, we all know he’s one of the greatest screen actors there is. Stature like that means he doesn’t have to take chances if he doesn’t want to, and that very few directors can push him. Spike Lee is different, and he’s able to keep Washington off balance in interesting ways. In a lesser film with a lesser director, Washington would play a man of morals and conviction, just like he’s played repeatedly. Here, his David has morals that are bent, if not sometimes broken. Washington makes us believe that he might sacrifice Paul’s son for the good of his company. After a few news cycles, who will really care?

If I’m hearing correctly, Highest 2 Lowest will have a theatrical run of about two weeks before it drops on Apple TV. I’m fond of saying that two things can be true at the same time. It’s true that a streamer like Apple is likely the only option Spike Lee had to make this movie his way with the right budget. It’s also true that giving a two week theatrical release of a modern cinematic master is shameful. In the world we live in, mid-budget dramas for adults wither and die in theaters. So I ask you again, do you love movies? Do you love movies like Highest 2 Lowest, movies large enough to fit the greatest city in the world and the heart of a desperate man? Because if so, you know what you need to do.

*I didn’t add Greta Gerwig/Saoirse Ronan or Jordan Peele/Daniel Kaluuya since those teams have only made two films together. I was looking for three or more. 

**Seriously! Both McKay and Ferrell have had what we could charitably call uneven filmographies. When they worked together, prior to falling out, they made a kind of comedy that I don’t think has ever existed before.

***As a resident of Colorado, I think it’s possible that no human being is as passionate about my state as much as Spike Lee both loves New York and hates Boston.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.