'Highest 2 Lowest' movie review: Spike Lee, Denzel Washington are still a hit duo

Hearing the strains of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ” as Denzel Washington’s music mogul steps out from his New York City penthouse, you know there’s only one way his day’s going to go in Spike Lee’s new crime thriller, “Highest 2 Lowest.” 

Professional uncertainty and a massive moral dilemma take Washington’s character on a quest through the streets of Lee’s beloved Big Apple in this absorbing reimagining (★★★ out of four; rated R; streaming on Apple TV+ Sept. 5) of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 drama “High and Low.” And although they haven’t collaborated in a while, this teaming of old friends Lee and Washington soars once it gets cooking.

David King (Washington) is famous for having “the best ears” in the music business – even his Beats are golden – but after decades of discovering chart-topping artists with his Stackin’ Hits label, the industry has bypassed him as AI and social media have trumped the music itself. With a lucrative merger deal on the table, King decides to instead buy back his company, keep it in the family, and one day hand it down to son Trey (Aubrey Joseph).

As King and his wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), figure out the financial logistics, he learns that his kid has vanished from a college basketball camp and gets a ransom call from a stranger: $17.5 million or he never sees Trey again. In a twist, the kidnappers mistakenly snatch Trey’s buddy Kyle (Elijah Wright) – the son of King’s driver and childhood friend Paul (Jeffrey Wright) – but the deal for Kyle's life remains.

Cops get involved, bristling worried dad Paul, and a street-level narrative unfolds that takes the story from a Puerto Rican Day parade and Yankee Stadium to darker corners of the city as King weighs how much he’ll do to save Kyle versus save his label.

Alan Fox’s screenplay revamps Kurosawa’s original script (itself adapted from Ed McBain’s novel “King’s Ransom"), and Lee crafts a film that explores things he loves: music, history and sports. In that way, it feels very much like a signature “Spike Lee Joint.”

The pacing is uneven at times, in the more melodramatic beginning and as the police get increasingly involved in the kidnapping, yet there are scenes when it's best to just buckle up for the ride. One exquisitely crafted sequence with shades of 1970s white-knuckle affairs like “The French Connection” involves King, a Jordan book bag chock-full of Swiss francs, mysterious figures on motorbikes, and a subway train rocking with crazed Yankee fans.

Lee has long had a love for Kurosawa – the Japanese master’s “Rashomon” was an inspiration behind the famed Brooklynite’s “She’s Gotta Have It” – and does him justice. “Highest 2 Lowest” is a better outing than recent Lee remakes like the middling “Oldboy” and “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” and the latest in a streak of movies (“Chi-Raq,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da Five Bloods”) that continues to cement Lee’s status as an essential Hollywood voice. 

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington reunite for the fifth time in 'Highest 2 Lowest'

“Highest” also marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington and the first since 2006’s “Inside Man.” A couple of those – “He Got Game” and “Malcolm X” – find Washington leading some of the director’s finest works, and with this new film, Lee brings an almost “Training Day”-esque intensity out of Washington alongside an artistic, grounded soul. 

Washington and the movie mostly find their mojo in the latter half as key scenes with Paul reveal King as a man more than mogul, and Washington shares a blistering series of moments with A$AP Rocky, who plays up-and-coming rapper Yung Felon with youthful rage. It’s a fascinating meeting of new and old school, a very personal rap battle between two guys who see the game differently, that also feels like Lee having his own conversation as an iconoclast in a changing entertainment space.

Ice Spice gets her first notable film role and British R&B singer Aiyana-Lee has a bit of a starmaking turn, and Elijah Wright, the son of Oscar-nominated dad Jeffrey, also proves a breakout talent. While “Highest 2 Lowest” makes for an intensely watchable reunion of a couple of icons, Lee makes sure to do right by the kids, too.