The New Yorker Cinema:

Denzel Washington stars as a music executive who takes police matters into his own hands, in this remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 kidnapping classic.

By Richard Brody

It’s fascinating when filmmakers make drastic late-career shifts, as Martin Scorsese did with “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Francis Ford Coppola recently did with “Megalopolis.” Now it’s Spike Lee’s turn, and in his new drama, “Highest 2 Lowest,” he shifts in a surprising way. The film is a remake of the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 drama “High and Low,” among the greatest police procedurals. Lee turns the story into what is one of his most personal films, both emotionally and intellectually. Often, directors’ self-transformations involve changes in modes of production: Scorsese broke away from the studios and found independent financing; Coppola self-financed. Lee, who has had his own production company throughout his career, makes “Highest 2 Lowest”a film about his particular modes of production, one that focusses on the underlying notion of owningthe means of production.

“Highest 2 Lowest” is a story of culture—of how it’s created and disseminated, flowing (in both directions) between the highest echelons of society and the lowest. The movie starts on high, with rapturous views of the Manhattan skyline and David King (Denzel Washington), one of the city’s highfliers, pacing on the balcony of his penthouse on the Brooklyn waterfront. A music executive, he’s discussing his plan to regain control of Stackin’ Hits, the label he founded. Five years ago, he sold a controlling interest, which is about to pass into the hands of a holding company that he fears will strip the label for parts, dispersing the archive of Black music that he enshrined there. David’s investment in the company is more than financial: renowned for having “the best ears in the business” (if you haven’t heard, he’ll tell you), he has been behind fifty Grammy winners and his music once dominated the charts. These days, the label barely breaks even, but he is looking to preserve his legacy and perhaps to recapture his glory days.

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