Highest 2 Lowest

The music and the soundtrack makes this an almost unwatchable movie.

Too long.

The secondary roles are poorly acted.

The wife is not believable.

The plot is stretched and makes no sense.

The pacing is slow and hard to digest.

Missed opportunity to make a good movie.

Some scenes drag too long just for the sake of it.

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.

I've got to say, I was pretty disappointed with "Highest 2 Lowest." I came in with high hopes, but the plot just felt all over the place. It's like the film tried to juggle too many stories at once without giving any of them the attention they deserved. As a result, none of the individual character arcs felt complete, and it was hard to get invested in what was happening.

The editing, which is usually a strength for Spike Lee, felt jarring this time around, jumping from one thread to another before you could really settle in.

As for whether it's worth watching, I'd say probably not. For me, the film's biggest issue is its narrative cohesion. It felt like a collection of interesting scenes that never quite came together to form a meaningful whole. While the performances were solid, the lack of a clear, focused story made it a bit of a tough watch.

I don't know if the intention was to make this movie feel like a soap opera, but unfortunately that's exactly how it played out. The pacing was uneven, the dialogue felt forced, and the story lacked real depth. The characters came across as flat and unconvincing, which left me very disappointed overall.

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.