Highest 2 Lowest

 It's possible that Spike Lee isn't angry anymore. Or, perhaps, he's concluded that anger doesn't accomplish anything beyond self-affirmation, something that the wealthy and successful filmmaker no longer requires.  A case in point is Lee's rather jovial and, even, inspirational crime picture Highest 2 Lowest.  This 2025 movie, based on Akira Kurosawa's noir High to Low, proves that crime doesn't pay, that there are resources of generosity in people that are surprising and life-affirming, that community is all-important, and that art, ultimately, will show us the way.  Lee solves the problem of America's intrinsic racism by showing us a thriving Black community that has only the most limited contact with White folks.  There's no racism on display because there are no White people and, therefore, no racists in the movie.  (There's a peckerwood White detective who is initially portrayed as a potential source of racial conflict -- but the character doesn't develop in that direction.)  Highest 2 Lowest is big, loose, and epic in some respects.  It's also ill-focused with some scenes that feel a bit perfunctory -- without the rage, Lee is a little diminished. Spike Lee aspires to being an idealogue, but his movies are complicated, objective, and inhabited with vital characters who are not merely spokespersons for their respective positions -- in interviews, he tends to describe movies that are agit-prop and that no one would want to see.  But, in practice, his films are much more complex and open-minded; the movies display a "negative capacity." a skepticism and willingness to question things that Lee, the mouthpiece of Black power, doesn't admit to possessing.

In form, Highest 2 Lowest begins by closely following the Kurosawa movie.  A wealthy and privileged man, David King, (Denzel Washington) has risen to great fame and fortune as the visionary entrepreneur of Stack Records, a recording powerhouse that produces rhythm and blues, soul, and rap pop songs.  (He is said to have the "best ears in the music industry.") Tired of the financial constraints on his studio, King intends to raise money and buy out his partners so that he can run the business as he desires.  He is engaged in negotiations to these ends when his son is apparently kidnaped by some half-crazed thug who demands 17.5 million dollars ransom in 1000 franc Swiss currency.  King immediately reports the kidnaping to the cops who, a bit implausibly, set up a complicated and technologically elaborate command headquarters in King's spectacular Brooklyn condominium, a terraced suite that overlooks the Bridge and Manhattan.  Important to the film's themes is King's collection of Black artists, heavily focused on Basquiat -- a group of pictures that are featured in inserted shots throughout the action.  It turns out that the inept kidnaper has, in fact, captured the teenage son of King's Black Muslim chauffeur.  King needs the money for the buyout of his business and initially (for about ten minutes) resists paying the ransom for the chauffeur's son -- but, he sees the light, and agrees to fund the ransom although intending to make sure that his money is protected and that he gets back every penny (or Swiss franc).  A series of chases ensue and, after a botched hand-off on the subway, the bad guy gets the money.  The bad guy is laughably stupid and it takes King and the Muslim chauffeur about three minutes to get his home address.  King goes to the man's home and talks to his wife.  The bad guy is around the block working on recordings in a penny ante dungeon of a recording studio.  It turns out that the villain has named his first son after King and is just trying, albeit through rather hamhanded means, to break into the recording industry.  After some sharp and penetrating dialogue between King and wannabe recording star -- the two of them have rap duel, slinging rhymes at each other -- the hero overcomes the bad guy and, with the help of the chauffeur, retrieves his money.  There is an extended and important epilogue.  King's heroic exploits to save the chauffeur's boy has earned him the acclamation of the community and he is now even more famous, with his artist's songs steadily climbing in the charts.  Similarly, the bad guy is famous also and has record labels courting him for his back-catalogue of gangster rap songs.  The movie ends with two songs, encapsulating the idea of sanctified music  (gospel as it were) and the devil's music (rap).  In a hallucinatory sequence King interviews the villainous rapper (he's called "Yung Felon") and has a vision of his song as a video complete with writhing big-booty dancers and the sullen, sneering gangster rapper in the midst of the infernal display.  (Some aspects of the film's ending remind me of the great final minutes of Lee's Bamboozled which has similar themes.)  Throughout the movie, King's teenage son has been trying to get him to listen to a girl named Sula, who the young man believes will be a big star.  In the last sequence, Sula sings to King with his family present and King begins to hear the score and orchestration with which he will accompany the song.  The music is transcendentally beautiful and King, who is now wearing a cross and running a boutique recording studio, compliments the girl and says he will make her into a star.  

Highest 2 Lowest is well-written:  King's unerring ears allow him to correlate the kidnaper's voice with the rap song performed by the bad guy and, on that basis, track the man down.  Similarly, a turning point in the film occurs when King's son, Trey, says to his father that "you have the best ears in the music industry...but the coldest heart."  Lee uses close-ups sparingly -- the first close shot of Denzel Washington seems to be about a third of the way through the film.  Set pieces including a wild ride on a subway full of Yankee fans and a Puerto Rican celebration with great music and a parade punctuate the action with impressive chases that have some of the flavor of Brian De Palma's action films.  Ultimately, the movie preaches the value of integrity and community; various forms of false consciousness tangled up with fame and money are subjected to subtle critique and the film avoids unnecessary violence -- there's a single shooting (and the victim survives); no one is killed in the movie.  King's rooms are full of large-scale works of art on which the camera often lingers.  The emphasis on paintings and graphic works is consistent with the notion that music and other forms of cultural expression are, ultimately, sacramental, the means of grace -- the girl's song, an extended sequence, at the end of the movie makes this theme palpable and inescapable.  (There's a fundamental incongruity in the plot:  King struggles to raise the 17.5 million dollars for the ransom, the same sum needed to buy out his partners in the music studio.  First, this figure seems relatively modest given King's apparent success and fortune; second, he could readily raise the money by selling off a couple of his larger Basquiat canvases, works of art that I would estimate as being worth 100 million dollars (In 2017, a Basquiat painting sold for110 million dollars; more recent prices have been between 65 million and 88 million dollar.)