This text appeared within the Could 28, 2025 version of The Movie Remark Letter, our free weekly e-newsletter that includes unique movie criticism and writing. Join the Letter right here.

Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee, 2025)

Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, which premiered Out of Competitors at this yr’s Cannes, is a giddy, gritty reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s Excessive and Low (1963) that trades out the Japanese basic’s postwar-Tokyo setting for a up to date New York Metropolis marked by stark divisions of sophistication and race. With melodramatic bombast, the movie interprets the ethical reckonings of David King (a sometimes arresting Denzel Washington), a legendary music producer in denial about his profession’s decline, into the realm of epic allegory. David resides in an opulent penthouse overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge along with his adoring spouse Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) and teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph). Nonetheless, he’s unhappy and plotting an expert comeback that includes reclaiming shareholder management of his firm, Stackin’ Hits data. On the eve of finalizing this recklessly costly deal, David’s life is rocked by against the law: a mysterious caller later revealed to be the wannabe rapper Yung Felon (a vibrant A$AP Rocky) makes an attempt to kidnap Trey for ransom, however as a substitute, by accident nabs the son of David’s chauffeur, Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright).

In its second half, which sees David pursuing justice on the streets the place he was raised, Highest 2 Lowest transforms into an city thriller of bracingly choreographed set items amid throngs of sports activities followers and parade-goers. Washington’s fluid efficiency provides the movie’s concepts about energy, envy, and the tensions between completely different generations and financial lessons an epic weight, whereas additionally, by some means, maintaining issues gentle. His sly humorousness and gestural playfulness complement the movie’s cheeky undertow, additionally bolstered by Lee’s personal insights into the advantages and harms of recent applied sciences—in addition to the unsure destiny of inventive industries.

A couple of days after the movie’s premiere at Cannes, I sat down with Lee to debate the character of his (now-fifth) collaboration with Washington and the inherently cinematic options of the Huge Apple.

You final labored with Denzel 19 years in the past on Inside Man (2006).

Man, Denzel and I—we didn’t even notice that till we have been advised.

Do you see one another usually?

No, but when the Knicks or the Lakers go, like, 5 video games, then we’ll be on the market. He has a spot close to me, however we don’t see one another each day. We’re cool. Nevertheless it’s not like we’re calling one another up on a regular basis. It’s not that sort of relationship. I at all times need to work with him. However that’s life. We’ve acquired completely different tasks. He was doing Equalizer stuff. I’m doing my factor. However the intent—that we have been gonna work collectively once more—was at all times there.

Was Highest 2 Lowest constructed round Denzel? I can’t actually think about anybody else within the position. 

Yeah. He was connected to the movie already and introduced me into it. It was simple. He stated, “Spike, learn this and see in case you prefer it, and perhaps we are able to go at it once more.” Then hastily we’re within the saddle once more.

The movie is stuffed with these photos and icons of Black tradition—fairly actually, within the paintings and decorations round David King’s condo—and his casting enhances that. 

There’s the Basquiats. Romare Beardens. Kehinde Wiley. For me it was all about conveying Black excellence, you understand? It is a household that has the cash to purchase artwork like this. Pam, David’s spouse, is on the board of the Studio Museum in Harlem. From their lounge you’ll be able to see Decrease Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. He’s driving a Rolls-Royce. A number of instances within the movie, he says, “I’ve acquired the very best ears within the enterprise.” So we wished to point out Black affluence and energy.

The best way that’s arrange within the script and performs out within the first half, particularly, jogged my memory of a basic melodrama. You’ve acquired the archetypes: this nice man, his lovely spouse, his doting son. 

Properly, the place do they stay?

They stay on the high of the tallest tower. 

Yeah [Laughs]. It’s not Excessive and Low. It’s Highest 2 Lowest. It’s not a remake, it’s a reinterpretation. The Kurosawa movie is about in Tokyo, and the protagonist is a shoe-company government. Right here, we’re coping with the music business, however the large distinction is that we’re in New York Metropolis, which isn’t actually a part of the US. We do our personal factor. Not “factor”—T-H-A-N-G. And that’s why folks love and hate New York. However we don’t care. The extremes come naturally as a result of that’s New York at this time, which is why we needed to shoot there.

To start with, we’re within the bougier, untouchable components of New York, however we progressively undergo locations that really feel extra lived-in and grittier. 

That’s proper. We’re in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Boogie Down. Yankee Stadium. The movie is meant to scent like New York. And it’s not fragrance. You see the grit. We get on the Quantity 4 practice from Borough Corridor all the best way to 161st Avenue.

We’re on the practice for the ransom-delivery scene, when the “highest” meets the “lowest” and David first encounters the kidnapper, Yung Felon, and his lackeys. That’s a terrific set piece.

Right here’s the factor. I actually wished to emphasise that the villain character isn’t some ghetto-thug rapper. He’s very good, and he’s thought out a plan that may make it very tough for the NYPD to maintain up. He makes use of the black Michael Jordan backpack with the Jumpman [logo], which is in all places. So he’s utilizing all these chaotic parts which can be already baked into the town: the subway, the Puerto Rican Day Parade.

The Yankees are enjoying a house recreation. 

They usually’re enjoying in opposition to the motherfuckin’ hated Pink Sox. So you understand it’s going to be 50,000 folks on the market taking the subway. Have you ever seen the video of Knicks fans celebrating after the final recreation [of the semifinals], once we beat the Celtics? That was like 10 instances the chaos of New Yr’s Eve. After we win the NBA Championship, they’re going to wish the Nationwide Guard. That’s too many individuals for the NYPD. They gained’t know what to do.

Why give Yung Felon such a literal title? 

who got here up with that title? Rocky [Laughs]. I didn’t protest.

Did Rocky weigh in on some other parts? As an illustration, I like the truth that David figures out the perpetrator is Yung Felon by listening to his monitor and recognizing the lyrics from kidnapping sufferer Kyle’s testimony. 

That half was within the script from the get-go. I advised Rocky, “Give me two songs.” So he got here up with the track that turns into the clue in addition to the track he’s recording within the studio.

That’s one other nice scene, the studio face-off.

It’s just like the basic showdown in Gunfight on the O.Ok. Corral (1957). You could have this younger buck up in opposition to the man he’s attempting to take down. That’s basic cinema. That’s Shakespearean. Nevertheless it was additionally about reinforcing the generational hole between them. In the long run, David says, “Your music’s not for me.” He’s extra like a Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy sort of producer. He’s not essentially into newer types of rap.

However he additionally is aware of easy methods to rap! Was Denzel improvising right here, or have been his traces within the rap battle already within the script?

I’ll inform you what occurred, as a result of I didn’t really know what he was going to do till we began to shoot. Denzel went again to one in all Nas’s previous albums, picked a track, and used its lyrics for that scene. Rocky didn’t learn about this. Denzel would rhyme. Rocky would rhyme. Lastly, Rocky says, “What the fuck is that this, a rap battle?” That was completely natural.

Did he improvise like this while you first began working collectively? How have issues modified by way of the way you direct Denzel’s efficiency, if in any respect? 

It’s been a blessing to do 5 movies with my brother Denzel Washington from Cash Earnin’ Mount Vernon. However my strategy has at all times been easy: “So, Denzel, how would you want to do that?” Possibly a couple of times I’ll sit him down and provides him a suggestion. He’ll take it, however he’s in full command of his craft. It’s fairly uncommon that I ask him to attempt it a distinct approach. The work we do is usually throughout rehearsals, the place we focus on and make choices. We’re not on set, you understand, faucet dancing. We all know what we wish once we get there. Denzel will get proper right down to it. He doesn’t need to do 20 takes.

So he’s environment friendly.

“Let’s go. Let’s transfer on to the following setup. Subsequent setup. Subsequent setup.” There’s an urgency. However there’s a distinction between being rushed and being pressing. As a result of we’ve accomplished the work and are ready once we come to set within the morning.

How lengthy have been rehearsals?

A few week.

So many little bits of his efficiency are disarming, regardless that they’re simply tiny hand gestures or sure line deliveries. It’s like he’s making them up on the fly—just like the second when he’s doing a finger gun that he factors at others and himself. 

What you’re perceiving is just the genius of Denzel Washington. For instance, the scene when Jeffrey Wright’s character is available in and begs him to pay the ransom for his son. On the finish of that, Denzel picks up a faux grenade and says one thing alongside the traces of, “I’ve felt many instances like blowing somebody up.” That’s not within the script. That grenade was only a random prop on his desk. He makes use of the props round him—every thing he sees round him—to create the second.

One other approach you emphasize the 2 males’s generational hole is thru David’s criticism of A.I. and social media. Yung Felon finally goes viral, however David’s not eager about that sort of fame. 

I hate A.I. That was me talking when David says, “A.I. makes music that has no soul, no spirit.” That’s how I really feel about it. I don’t need to sound like an previous fuddy-duddy, however I’m glad the Writers’ Guild of America is preventing to make sure that inventive materials is not going to be written by a pc. What about schooling? Children are handing over papers that their computer systems wrote. Creativity, artwork, the human soul—it’s susceptible to being changed by machines! That’s one other movie, although.

And but you additionally appear to be fairly lively on Instagram. I seen the faux newspaper covers within the movie, with David styled because the Black Panther, appear modeled after the Every day Information and New York Publish basketball covers you’ve posted on your account.  

Additionally the 2 ladies David auditions, the one with the guitar at first and the singer on the finish—I discovered these artists on Instagram. I tracked them down and met them. Try @OfficialSpikeLee. You’ll see a portrait that Kurosawa signed to me, too. I had the dignity of assembly him, somebody who’s been vital to me since my days at NYU Movie College and the making of my movie She’s Gotta Have It (1986). He wrote all of his autographs with a paintbrush and white ink. That’s one of many objects I treasure most.

Beatrice Loayza is a author and historian who contributes usually to The New York Instances, The Criterion Assortment, The Nation, 4Columns, and different publications.