Highest 2 Lowest

Spike Lee's new crime thriller Highest 2 Lowest reunites him with his favorite leading man, Denzel Washington. The film is based on Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low, and it’s a tense story about a very rich man with a very big problem. Part morality play and part action movie, Washington plays a music mogul who confronts questions of responsibility and power when he believes his son has been kidnapped. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Linda Holmes?

  Spike Lee's new crime thriller, Highest to Lowest, reunites him with his favorite leading man, Denzel Washington, for a story about a very rich man with a very big problem.

• 0:30Aisha Harris?

  In a tense story that's part morality play and part action movie, Washington's music mogul confronts questions of responsibility and power. I'm Aisha Harris.

• 0:40Linda Holmes?

  And I'm Linda Holmes. And today, we're talking about Highest to Lowest on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:10Linda Holmes?

  Joining us today is Soraya Nadia McDonald. She's a cultural critic, journalist, and the senior criticism editor for The Rumpus. Welcome back, Soraya.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  Hello, hello. Nice to be here again.

• 2:21Linda Holmes?

  Absolutely. Glad to have you. In Highest to Lowest, Denzel Washington plays David King, the powerful owner of a storied record label that isn't quite as hot as it once was, but it's made him very rich. One day, someone kidnaps his teenage son Trey and holds him for ransom. Only, it turns out, there's been a mix-up. They didn't take Trey. They took his buddy, Kyle, the son of David's closest friend and driver, Paul. He's played by Jeffrey Wright. But even when the mistake is discovered, the kidnapper still demands the money, many millions of dollars.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  But if it's about me, then you can't expect me to pay seventeen and a half million dollars for somebody else's son if it's about me. But then his blood is gonna be on your hands then. How you want it? No, man.

• 3:09Linda Holmes?

  David is trying to regain control of the business he spent his life building, and he desperately needs every penny to make that happen. But how can he refuse his friend and his son and everyone else who will inevitably think it's his fault if this kid who isn't his doesn't make it? Highest to Lowest is directed by Spike Lee, and it's based on the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low, which is itself based on the Ed McBain novel King's Ransom. It's in theaters now. It arrives on Apple TV Plus in September. Aisha, I'm gonna start with you. What did you think of this one?

• 3:42Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I mean, I am just so happy that in the year 2025, we're still getting new Spike Lee joints. You know, he had a rough patch throughout a lot of the 2010s, and I think his last several movies, starting with Black Klansman, and then, of course, the very, very great Defy Bloods from 2020. He seems to be on a roll here. And sure, is it a risk to, you know, try and take on and reimagine one of the most acclaimed films that has ever been made? A movie that has had like, you know, 60 plus years of existing? Yeah, it's a risk. When Spike did his remake of Old Boy, it did not go well.

• 4:24Aisha Harris?

  I think people should expect that this goes much better than that. And I can understand easily why you would want to remake High and Low, because it does translate, I think, so well across cultures, across generations. It's still very relevant and I love seeing this twist on it. And, and while I have some, some caveats that we will probably get into, I think overall, I'm just happy to see him and happy to see him working again with Denzel. It's magic. It's very much magic.

• 4:54Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. All right. Soraya, how about you? What'd you think?

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Likewise, it's really wonderful, I think, to see Spike this far into his career, still making work that feels like he's excited about filmmaking. And I think part of that is because he's been, you know, a Kurosawa fanboy for such a long time. And to see him have both, you know, the means, the resources, the talent to kind of dig into those things is really fantastic. And I will say, it's also just wonderful now, living in Brooklyn. And I went to a screening earlier this week and realized that I was looking at David King's building and sort of like looking, looking for the penthouse as we're going across the bridge from the car.

• 5:40Speaker 04

  I think this is actually one of my favorite establishing shots of Spike's career is the opening to this movie. And you get these incredible, just expansive shots of Brooklyn, of the Dumbo Clock Tower. And it really just sets the tone for You know, this sort of moguldom that David inhabits, just surveying this man's life, you know, and the way he sees himself as this king of New York with this incredible view of Manhattan, you know, from his gorgeous Brooklyn penthouse with the with the Kahdi Wiley's and the Basquiat's hanging on the walls.

• 6:20Linda Holmes?

  Yep, yep, yep, yes.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  There's just a lot of stuff to sort of tickle the eyes and the ears in this film.

• 6:26Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, that was really my first reaction is, you know, the first thing you see in this film is those wonderful shots of New York with this Norm Lewis rendition of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma, which I think is such a fabulous choice because it really hearkens back to that song really stands for a man who is essentially alone on this vast expanse of land and is seeing, you know, the world is stretched out before me. This is my dream of, you know, when Oklahoma was still a territory and, you know, he's a cowboy.

• 7:08Linda Holmes?

  To translate that into this setting with David looking at New York from his penthouse, and those shots are just freaking gorgeous. They're just gorgeous. Yes. Makes so much sense and yet is so inventive. I was excited about this movie because my favorite Spike Lee movie, not necessarily the best, but my favorite Spike Lee movie is Inside Man. And which is the 2006 bank heist hostage situation movie, which also has Denzel Washington as well as Clive Owen and Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer. And I adore that movie. I've rewatched it a bunch of times. And so I was really interested in seeing him doing like a crime movie. I'm always up for like a good Spike Lee crime movie. And I just love.

• 7:53Linda Holmes?

  How early in his career, a lot of the sort of mainstream press stuff about him was very kind of issue focused and very like, he makes important movies. And it's not that that wasn't true and isn't true. Like, I felt about watching The Fableman's with Spielberg, where even if I didn't care that much about that story, you just look at it and you're like, well, a guy knows how to shoot a movie.

• 8:17Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 8:18Linda Holmes?

  And over and over again, I just thought so much about that, the making of this film. The use of music in this film is just so smart. It has a kind of what I would consider like an old Hollywood orchestral score for much of it. You know, the cliche would have been to use a lot of hip hop. So there's anything wrong with that, but he makes this other choice. I have seen so many much lesser directors of much more poorly thought out pieces be like, it's about crime, it's about, quote unquote, please imagine the largest air quotes in the world, an urban setting, therefore, everything must be hip hop. I

• 8:59Linda Holmes?

  love a big orchestra. I love a big orchestral score. There's this diegetic use of Eddie Palmieri and his group because they set a piece of it at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, which is so smart and it works so well. For a movie that's about music, I adored the use of music. So many beautiful shots. I just really sat back and appreciated the artfulness of this as much as the story.

• 9:24Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I think I have to disagree slightly or push back a little bit on the use of music here because there are so many things about Spike that make him so singular. And he is an auteur. Like, when you're watching a Spike Lee movie, you always know it's a Spike Lee movie. And that's both a good thing, and sometimes it's a, it can be a frustrating thing. And He's often worked with, you know, Terrence Blanchard. Here he's working with Howard Drossen. And one of the things that I've always kind of struggled with with Spike Lee movies is the fact that he often uses orchestral music where it doesn't seem like it should be there. Like it's just, you're having like a normal conversation. It just kind of is like rumbling underneath and it can get kind of distracting.

• 10:06Aisha Harris?

  I guess I was questioning sort of how Spike feels about hip hop today, based on the way this movie pans out. Yes, that's very fair. Music has always been integral to his filmmaking, like this is known. And he's embraced hip hop in the past. Of course, you have him working with Public Enemy multiple times in movies. He's not someone who does not like hip hop. But I also wonder how he feels about hip hop now. And the way it plays out here and the way the moralizing that often comes with Spike is like very, your mileage may vary. I wasn't sure who this David King character was to put, like, was he supposed to be a Quincy Jones type? You know, it's New York, so Jay-Z immediately comes to mind.

• 10:49Aisha Harris?

  And in fact, during one scene, he looks, basically, he's dressed like Jay-Z circa the Black Album era, you know, the blueprint.

• 10:57Speaker 04

  I mean, on the one hand, it feels like the score of this film was, I mean, it is very much like in your face. And in some ways, it kind of reminds me of those threads that he was pulled on for a long time with Terrence Blanchard, where you could kind of hear the Aaron Copland influences in a lot of Terrence's work, right? You've got these big, brassy measures. You can sort of hear these influences coming through again. But it is interesting, like you say, Ayesha, I do wonder, yeah, how does he feel about hip hop right now? Because you really do, you get sort of closer and closer to Spike kind of approaching

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Old Man yelling at Cloud a little bit through Denzel in this film.

• 11:44Aisha Harris?

  At times, yeah. A little bit of pull up your pants going on here.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  A little bit of pull up your pants. But it's so pleasurable, like I kind of want to give it to him.

• 11:54Linda Holmes?

  That makes sense.

• 11:56Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 11:56Linda Holmes?

  When you point this out, it does make me realize that you don't hear a lot of like, what music does David really love?

• 12:04Aisha Harris?

  Right.

• 12:05Linda Holmes?

  You sort of, at one point, very close to the end, you do, you hear like an example of the kind of music he really loves. But other than that, he talks a lot about how much he cares about his record company, how much he cares about the art that he has tried to nurture. And in fact, about, Soraya made mention of the Basquiats and so forth in the apartment. And I think the first thing you see when they show his apartment is this painting of Toni Morrison, and they go way out of their way to sort of try to give a location of his artistic sensibility via description. But then you don't hear necessarily a lot of examples of it, other than, like I said, at the very end, you kind of see him get lit up by hearing an artist.

• 12:49Linda Holmes?

  But, but other than that, like, what is the music that he loves? I think that's a really fair question.

• 12:54Aisha Harris?

  It's so curious that like, he is this music mogul who, you know, is supposed to have like tapped into the culture in many ways and fostered that culture. It's like, do we live in an alternate universe where he also like worked with Marvin Gaye and CB1? Like, because all of the art is exactly, like, Spike is speaking to us through the mise en scène, through the entire like setup.

• 13:21Linda Holmes?

  Right, right, right.

• 13:22Aisha Harris?

  And it kind of reminded me actually of his exhibit that was at the Brooklyn Museum for a while. But I also saw it at the Academy Museum. Like, they had like a section dedicated to Spike that he like, he was just like, here are all the things that I collected artifacts from Hollywood. It kind of reminded me of that, where he's like speaking to us through his love of culture and cultivating culture. It was interesting to me because I was just like, oh, we see all of these artists who we're all familiar with, but we don't see any artists who he might have worked with, who like would be on the wall. But at the same time, he populates the film with actual rappers from this generation and younger. You've got Ice Spice showing up, you've got Princess Nokia, you have A$AP Rocky. So it is an interesting, delicate walk.

• 14:07Aisha Harris?

  But I, I say all this, and yet I agree with you, Soraya, where I'm just like, it's chewy, it doesn't quite all work, but also I'm still like, okay with it. Like, I'm, I'm giving him a pass.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Like, there are some ways that David King does feel very Jay-Z coded. And almost like, You know, these big names that he clearly admires, whether it's Aretha or Stevie or James Brown or whoever, they almost feel sort of like a list of greatest hits of artists that Jay-Z would sample to rap over.

• 14:38Linda Holmes?

  Yes. I think it's so interesting because when I was watching this, you know, like I said, I went to this really hoping for the kind of like twisty thriller story that I really love and that I think Inside Man is, and it isn't really that. It's not as thematically complex, I think, as I thought that it might be. I don't think it's as morally complex as I thought it might be because obviously he's presented with this, they sort of suggest, are you going to nearly bankrupt yourself for this other kid who is not your kid, right? But is the kid of Paul, played by Jeffrey Wright, who as always I love in this. Oh, my goodness. I think he's so good and makes, gives this story a whole other level of both kind of humanity and humor, which is so welcome.

• 15:22Speaker 06

  Right now, I'm asking you for everything. I'm asking you for my life. Now, you ain't asking me for life. Right now, you're asking me for 17.5 million dollars. That's all people do is ask me for stuff. Can you give me this? Can you give me that? They just want me to pay.

• 15:36Linda Holmes?

  What I wound up appreciating was just like looking at it and being like, oh, okay, so this is the conversation he decides to actually show you, and this is the conversation where it's silent and you're just seeing it through a window, you know, which I think he makes really interesting decisions about. And you're both kind of circling around this, I think, in a way that's really helpful to me, is that I always appreciate the fact that he is a guy with a kind of a pan-cultural interest in lots of different things.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 16:04Linda Holmes?

  That he is so interested in what you would consider, and again, even more air quotes, like high culture and pop culture and sports and lots of different kinds of music and musical theater. I love kind of, he draws from such an incredibly wide catalog of influences and references. It's always just. Fun to watch that happen. Like I said, I think that Puerto Rican Day Parade

• 16:32Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 16:32Linda Holmes?

  Stuff is so smart.

• 16:33Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Linda Holmes?

  And works so well. And also just gives you a chance to listen to great music. Um, Eddie Palmieri, by the way, died earlier this month, and this is a great opportunity to just go and see this group and how amazing they are. Again, it's such an appreciation of New York, as so many of his movies are. I enjoyed it a lot, even though not necessarily for the reasons I was hoping to slash expecting to, maybe.

• 16:59Aisha Harris?

  That sequence, the Puerto Rican Day Parade sequence was great because it made me miss that aspect of living in New York. I'm also just so glad you brought up Jeffrey Wright again, because he really was, as much as I loved watching Denzel work. And he himself is also kind of in back in a groove, I think, after maybe, you know, Between This, Macbeth, and Gladiator 2, even though Gladiator 2 was not a good movie, he was great in that. But Jeffrey Wright is so, so good here, and I kind of wish he factored more into the, the story. And I think that's another thing I struggled with is where Spike and, you know, the script itself kind of ultimately comes down Yeah. On this idea of like, black wealth and the responsibility we have to that.

• 17:44Linda Holmes?

  Definitely could have more energy in that conflict.

• 17:47Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Linda Holmes?

  You know, between them.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  He's kind of ambivalent about his own money, possibly.

• 17:52Aisha Harris?

  That's the thing. That's exactly, that was what I was thinking the whole time. I was like, this is some very Oprah-esque, like, Tyler Perry-esque, and I mean that not in terms of the way Tyler Perry directs, but in terms of this like ethos or this idea of like, black wealth.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 18:09Aisha Harris?

  Being an insulator against actual criticism.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:13Aisha Harris?

  And I feel as though I wanted more of that like friction between Jeffrey Wright's character and Denzel's character, because that, that is the thing, right? Like, at the end of the day, he's like, Jeffrey Wright's character is still the chauffeur. And not just the chauffeur, we also learn that he is an ex-con.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:32Aisha Harris?

  He is such a rich character, and that dynamic is so fascinating. And it felt to me like a sort of missed opportunity. Like, I wanted, even like Inside Man, amazing, but it has that like Nazi subplot.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:47Aisha Harris?

  That I think doesn't pull punches in the same way that this movie seems to pull punches. And

• 18:51Speaker 04

  There are parts where he starts to sort of creep up to it, right? Like, But it's very diffuse. We can contrast the way the NYPD treats, you know, this man who is the king of New York, a titan of industry. Everybody knows him. You know, when he calls, they come running versus like the way they're treating Jeffrey's character. Very rude, very dismissive. Not really interested in anything this man has to say or the care that he is showing for his own son. And that classed difference, right? Even intra racially, like among black folks of the treatment from the police.

• 19:33Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, those things I think are sort of like, they're outwardly acknowledged. They're sort of hat tipped too. But there's not a lot of kind of plot energy that goes into them. And there were times when I sort of thought, like I said, that more energy was going to go into the conflict over what to do. As I mentioned in the intro, you know, Jeffrey Wright is playing the best friend slash driver. And there's a very fair question of like, is that a thing? Like, what is the relationship between these two men? And how does it work? Because there's a moment when David is talking to another one of his business associates and he starts to say some really appalling things about like, maybe I just let this go and people will forgive me and people will get over it. And it's like, if you're really willing to dig into that

• 20:18Linda Holmes?

  about this guy, maybe that's like a more kind of morally complicated movie and that does not really turn out to be where they want to go with this story.

• 20:30Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I at least liked the fact that we get a moment between David and his son Trey, where Trey is just like, this is like another thing that I think Spike really seen. Even if we don't really fully understand his feelings on music, we do seem to get a clear eyed view of his take on social media and how, and the press, and how that can affect your image. And that moment between him and his son, where the son is just like, this is not just affecting you. This is affecting me. I am being blamed for my best friend's kidnapping. You need to work this out. Money is just money. It's both a very, you know, younger person, what a younger person may feel and think,

• 21:14Aisha Harris?

  but also, he's right. He's absolutely right. And I liked that dynamic. And all of that seems to happen in the first half. And in the second half, it kind of just like.

• 21:25Linda Holmes?

  It diffuses, yeah.

• 21:26Aisha Harris?

  It's all there for you to sort of, yeah, yeah. Again, I don't know, this is just, it's such a fun time.

• 21:32Linda Holmes?

  Yeah.

• 21:33Aisha Harris?

  And I will say that that one song that A$AP Rocky has features in at the end is, it's quite, it's a bop. I, I enjoyed it. I, I enjoyed it. I was like, oh, this is catchy, you know? Maybe not as deep as I wanted it to be, but it's fun.

• 21:47Linda Holmes?

  Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I think we all enjoyed it with certain caveats. Tell us what you think about Highest to Lowest. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/NPRPopCulture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Soraya Nadia McDonald, Aisha Harris, thank you so much for being here.

• 22:08Aisha Harris?

  Thank you.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 22:10Linda Holmes?

  This episode is produced by Liz Metzger, Janey Morris, and edited by Mike Katz. Our showrunner is Jessica Reedy, and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes. We'll see you all next time.