Highest 2 Lowest

An interesting concept with solid acting and a well paced execution. It's not Denzel Washington's best film, but it's still a good one.

Naturally, with the music industry being core to the film, the incidental music is varied and good. However, the background music is simply terrible, sometimes sounding like a schlocky drama and other times like a cheap soap opera and in several scenes, it totally broke the mood. It shows the value of having a good background track and this film simply doesn't.

Expected more from Spike Lee. Very misfitting score that belonged in a Star Wars type film. We don't need loud distracting music over every scene. The double edited shots were also distracting and over done. Bad acting from many of the supporting cast. Slow start, could have easily tightened the edit. This film didn't seem to know what it was. No clear vision. A little preachy. And a kind of dull story line with no twist!

Spike Lee has always been the perfect definition of a hit or miss as he has made some great movies like Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, She's Gotta Have It, Jungle Fever, and so on. At the same time, he has made some pretty awful movies, particular Oldboy (2013) and Miracle at St. Anna. With his latest film, based on a reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's classic "High and Low", it falls quite flat and rough.

For starters, there are some nice camerawork that helps presents the atmosphere and environment. Creating the vibe and energy of the city of New York. Lee does offer some fresh themes and concepts about it's characters, writing, and the political aspects, however it all feels confused, misplaced, and messy. The writing feels as if this new reinterpretation didn't offer anything special or interesting to the original and book, as if Lee confuses with what he wants to present and display. Alongside with some laughable bad dialogue, the performances are a mix bag. Denzel Washington does provide his best as his energy and personality is good. However some of the other performances are honestly pretty bad, particularly Ilfenesh Hadera. Almost as if the performances are TV levels of acting or being intentionally awful.

The production designs and structure feels cheap and dated, almost as if the movie is having a Hallmark and Lifetime approach. The musical score is one of the worst aspects about this movie as it's presentation, sounding, and how the music is used is all over the place, messy, and atrocious. Regarding pacing, it drags, as the pacing remains uneven and it's first and second act really struggles. However, around it's third act, it does pick up with some interesting and good thrilling moments.

I'm honestly kind of surprised with the positive reviews because audiences and critics have been raving this reinterpretation, however I found it to be tedious and frustrating. I do appreciate it isn't as disgraceful as Lee's remake of "Oldboy" (which I'm glad to hear he has since disowned the movie). However, no matter what, it's pretty clear that it's best to stay away from remaking classics because it ain't worth it.

It's difficult to take this movie in, or take it seriously. Ironically about a music mogul, Spike uses a continuous, distracting, misaligned, wildly inappropriate, cheesy score by Lawrence Manchester. The opening track was pure cringe. Hard to imagine what Spike could've been attempting beyond irony.

I guess the name of the movie Highest 2 Lowest is a pun on how "good" the movie is, a little high (Denzel and Jeffery's dramatic acting) and A LOT of LOWS (the entire script and poor acting from most of the cast). After watching the original movie High and Low by Akira Kurosawa I was intrigued to check out this remake by Spike Lee but gotta say I'm very disappointed in how far this movie falls short of Kurosawa's classic. In all honesty I don't believe Spike was the right person to even direct such a remake and instead I believe this movie should've been directed by someone like Scorsese who would've made the film the action thriller it should've been instead of this confusing mess that Spike Lee made. I'll rate this movie a 5 out of 10 due to the simple fact that the script is horrible despite Denzel Washington and Jeffery Wright carrying the movie, everyone else seemed like rookie actors who made the movie feel like a made for BET or Lifetime movie. I also have no idea why this movie went over 2 hours, lol I felt compelled to walk out the theater from being so underwhelmed with how cringeworthy the last 10 - 20 minutes of this movie became. I actually would've been more favorable towards this movie had it been shorter, like probably giving this a 6/10 but it just went on for far too long and quickly became a trainwreck to watch, it seemed as if Spike didn't even know how he wanted to end the movie so instead he prolonged it with unnecessary scenes. I believe this movie should've been released directly on Apple TV instead of having a short theatrical run.