August 15, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Spike Lee
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City in 2025, the dramatic film “Highest 2 Lowest” (a re-imagining of the 1963 movie “High and Low”) features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A wealthy music industry executive, who is trying to buy back the record company that he sold years ago, has to decide whether or not to pay $17.5 million in ransom for a kidnapping involving his son’s best friend.
Culture Audience: “Highest 2 Lowest” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Spike Lee, and crime thrillers about moral dilemmas.
“Highest 2 Lowest” is an uneven but watchable mix of riveting performances, a mismatched music score, stylish visuals, and unrealistic crime thriller scenes. Denzel Washington shines as a music executive caught in a kidnapping dilemma. This re-imagining of writer/director Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film “High and Low” (which was loosely based on Evan Hunter’s 1959 novel “King’s Ransom”) isn’t as cinematically artistic as “High and Low.” However, “Highest 2 Lowest” gets many aspects right in telling this story that’s mostly from the perspectives of urban music culture in the 2020s. “Highest 2 Lowest” falls short when its protagonist (an affluent and elderly music industry executive) suddenly morphs into acting like an action hero detective in scenes that don’t look entirely believable.
Directed by Spike Lee and written by Alan Fox, “Highest 2 Lowest” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. “Highest 2 Lowest” is the first feature-film screenplay for Fox. The movie takes place in 2025 in New York City, where “Highest 2 Lowest” was filmed on location. It’s in contrast to “High and Low,” which take place in the 1960s, in Yokohama, Japan.
In “Highest 2 Lowest,” David King (played by Denzel Washington) is the millionaire founder of Stackin’ Hits Records. David, who is also a music producer, is a Grammy-winning legend in the music industry, where he’s had major hits with several artists for the past 30 years. However, Stackin’ Hits has recently been in a sales slump. The record company hasn’t had a hot streak like it did about 25 years ago. (In “High and Low,” the protagonist is an executive at a shoe company.)
David lives in the penthouse of a luxury Brooklyn condominium with his socialite wife Pam King (played by Ilfenesh Hadera) and their only child: a son named Trey King (played by Aubrey Joseph), who’s about 17 years old. David (who prides himself on being an ethical business person) and Trey have a fairly good relationship, but David thinks Trey spends too much time on Trey’s phone and lectures Trey about it. Trey is an aspiring music executive who recommends unknown artists to audition for David.
Stackin’ Hits was sold five years ago to an unnamed corporation that kept David as the CEO of the company and appointed him as chair of the board of directors. With Stackin’ Hits currently in a revenue rut, Stackin’ Hits has been put up for sale again. David regrets selling Stackin’ Hits and wants to buy back the company through a leveraged buyout. In the beginning of “Highest 2 Lowest,” David is preoccupied with this business deal, which needs the board of directors’ approval.
In the meantime, David has convinced another board member named Patrick Bethea (played by Michael Potts) to sell Patrick’s shares in the company to David, so that David can have a controlling interest in Stackin’ Hits. David assures Patrick that he has the money to buy Patrick’s shares. It’s a verbal agreement that won’t be official until the legal documents are signed. David’s plan is to have a controlling interest in Stackin’ Hits and then raise enough capital to buy back the entire company.
Near the beginning of the movie, David asks Pam (who is a loyal and supportive wife) to give a reduced donation from the usual $500,000 annual donation that they usually give to the recording studio museum where Pam is chairperson of the board of directors. David tells Pam that they need to tighten their personal budgets so he can start buying back Stackin’ Hits. Pam somewhat reluctantly goes along with this plan because it’s not what David had promised her.
David had originally promised to scale back his work schedule and reduce his Stackin’ Hits responsibilities, in order to spend more time with his family. David freely admits that he changed his mind and still wants to be fully in charge of Stackin’ Hits. There’s not much Pam can do about David’s changing his mind and backing out of his promise to her. The movie shows many examples of David being accustomed to being in charge and getting his way.
David is admired by his work colleagues, including his attorney Gabe (played by Wendell Pierce), who delivers some upsetting news to David later on in the movie. Even though David is highly respected in the music industry, several conversations in the movie reveal that David has lost his passion for music (especially discovering new artists), and he only seems to care about the business part of the music business. Pam is one of the first people to point out this change in David. It’s why she doesn’t think it’s a great idea for David to continue to have a time-consuming commitment to Stackin’ Hits.
David’s closest friend is someone he’s known for decades: his driver Paul Christopher (played by Jeffrey Wright), who isn’t afraid to tell David his honest opinions. David and Paul (who is a widower) knew each other before David hit it big in the music business. David is the godfather to Paul’s only child: a son named Kyle Christopher (played by Elijah White, who is Jeffrey Wright’s real-life son), who is a classmate and best friend of David’s son Trey. All of the performances in “Highest 2 Lowest” are skillful, but David’s character is the most complex, which is why Washington largely carries the movie with his talent and charisma.
The lives of the Knight and Christopher families get turned upside down when David receives a phone call from a kidnapper who tells him that Trey is being held captive and will be released if David pays a $17.5 million ransom in Swiss francs. Three detectives are the main investigators of this kidnapping: Detective Higgins (played by Dean Winters), who is bossy and rude; Detective Bell (played by LaChanze), who is logical and sarcastic; and Detective Earl Bridges (played by John Douglas Thompson), who has a “regular guy” personality.
Detective Bell figures out that the kidnapper or kidnappers want the ransom money in Swiss francs because the cash would weigh in the 100-pound range, compared to $17.5 million in American cash dollars, which would weigh more than 300 pounds. While David frantically scrambles to get the money, Trey is found safe and sound. However, it’s soon discovered that Kyle was the one who was actually kidnapped.
The kidnapper caller admits this mistake but insists that David still has to pay the ransom money. David now hesitates because he needs the money for his plan to buy back Stackin’ Hits. He is torn about what he should do. None of this is spoiler information because it’s the essential plot of the film. Who is behind the kidnapping is spoiler information that has already been revealed in the movie’s trailer but won’t be revealed in this review.
“Highest 2 Lowest” has some gripping and suspenseful scenes, but some of these scenes wrap up too neatly, like a “Law & Order” episode. In addition, the movie occasionally gets too enamored with showing off how many celebrities have cameos as themselves. Former NBA player Rick Fox portrays himself as the co-ed basketball coach of the high school where Trey and Kyle are students.
One of the movie’s biggest action sequences takes place during the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. And so, there are extensive shots of the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra performing, as the action sequence cuts back and forth between the parade and chase scenes happening on the streets and on a subway. Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos are two other celebrities who appear as themselves on stage at the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
For a movie where the protagonist is a powerful and famous executive in the music business, it’s somewhat baffling that there aren’t any scenes of David interacting with any superstars. Instead, the movie’s only visual indications that David is a celebrity and a “legend” are some quick glimpses of magazines (such as Time and Rolling Stone) that had David on the cover back in the 1990s or 2000s, and those magazines are framed and hanging on the walls of his home or office. David’s musical affections seem rooted in the past, since he name drops old hits from artists such as Stevie Wonder.
Two real-life hip-hop stars have roles in the movie, where they do not portray themselves: A$AP Rocky plays an aspiring rapper named Yung Felon, while Isis “Ice Spice” Gaston has the role of Yung Felon’s live-in girlfriend Marisol Cepeda. Yung Felon’s on-camera scenes are mostly in the last third of the movie. Marisol’s screen time is less than five minutes.
David is also shown politely interacting with a few female singers, who are awed to be in his presence when they audition for him. Jensen McCrae portrays a guitar-playing pop singer named June York. Aiyana-Lee has an impressive scene toward of the film as R&B singer Sula Janie Zimmie, whose stage name is Sula C. Sings. Sula tells David that the “c” in her stage name stands for the word “can.”
“Highest 2 Lowest” has some pointed observations about classism when it’s shown that law enforcement officials give preferential treatment when a crime victim is affluent versus working-class. The investigating officials have a noticeable shift in attitude when it’s discovered that Kyle, not Levi, has been kidnapped. Paul has an arrest record (he finished his parole years ago), but this arrest record causes an obvious bias against him, especially with Detective Higgins, who acts like he’s the alpha male who can be the one to solve this case.
Although the classism issues are accurately presented in “Highest 2 Lowest,” the movie fumbles when it comes to how this kidnapping investigation is depicted. It’s very unrealistic that only three detectives would be assigned to a certain sting operation that’s shown in the movie. Likewise, some of the things that David does to chase after the villain or villains are ludicrous and would not go unnoticed by law enforcement.
“Highest 2 Lowest” also has a very distracting music score by Howard Drossin. Much of the movie is supposed to be an intense thriller, but the movie’s pop-jazzy score music sounds like something that belongs in a romantic melodrama. There’s also an imaginary Yung Felon music video that looks awkwardly inserted in the movie, just to show someone (in this case, A$AP Rocky) performing hip-hop in the movie. And in this movie where there’s a lot of talk about certain characters discovering new music talent, not once is anyone in “Highest 2 Lowest” actually shown going to any live performances to scout for talent.
“Highest 2 Lowest” (which has excellent cinematography from Matthew Libatique) could have used tighter editing. The movie’s 133-minute runtime is a little too long for what the story ends up being. Even with these flaws, “Highest 2 Lowest” is worth seeing for Washington’s standout performance and if you’re curious to see what happens in this kidnapping mystery. “Highest 2 Lowest” is a gripping crime drama about the intersections of legacies and loyalties. There’s a lot that’s entertaining about the movie, but just don’t expect it to be a masterpiece.
Apple Studios and A24 released “Highest 2 Lowest” in select U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025. Apple TV+ will premiere the movie on September 5, 2025.
UPDATE: “Highest 2 Lowest” will be re-released in U.S. cinemas for one night only on December 6, 2025.
