Highest 2 Lowest

This was a "we made it" film. Spike Lee, Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright are far from needing to prove their filmmaking and acting chops, so this was a love letter to New York, Brooklyn and Black art. It's a timely representation of Black men building from the ground up, growing together and being a bridge to the young men (A$AP Rocky) who aspire to become them. The plot fell flat for me, because more could've been done with the characters, especially Jeffrey Wright's role. I watched and became more engrossed in the art collection than the story itself.

The overall good reviews suckered me into giving this a chance but it was a major letdown. I haven't rolled my eyes and thought "this is so cringe" so many times in a movie before. TERRIBLE editing and pacing. Very boring...jumping around skipping crucial scenes you'd expect to see. It seemed like it was written by a 13 year old. Some very bad acting...almost walked out early on but was hoping for a payoff that never really comes. Out of the whole 2+ hours there was maybe like 5 minutes of what I would call good or interesting choices. It's so over the top and cheesy, including most of the music that is getting undeserved praise. A lot of times it doesn't fit with what's happening on the screen much at all. A24 should be ashamed of being attached to this.

If you're a big fan of spike lee, you'll probably love it. Maybe again you'll probably be disappointed. In my opinion, wasn't bad but it could've been great. It felt kinda dragged, overall you got Denzel, asap rocky did solid.

You can see asap was very into his lines, the scenes between him and Denzel were good.

Catch it at home and have a sit back on the couch with some popcorn and pizza and enjoy. It's in select theaters, feel free to try to catch it otherwise it'll be available to stream in 2 weeks.

Spike Lee movies are always a hit or miss with me. Loved his first, She's gotta have it, Malcolm X (too long), Do the Right Thing (too long), but I never got past the few other movies I saw. IMO the scoring of his movies is atrocious. And he seems to stretch out the scenes filled with dialog too long to the point you want to say "cut" or edit. And that's what I felt watching this "Apple Studio" movie. Spike in an interview said Apple was the only studio that would finance it. It's going straight to stream in about two weeks.

The acting is subpar and his close-ups of Denzel pondering decisions are laughable. Most of the actors are TV actors so that explains it the subpar-ness.

The movie perks up when the ransom drop takes place, but even then you wonder - WHAT the H? The money bag is passed from moto biker to moto biker and the police lose the actual money bag. From my understanding when there's a kidnapping and ransom of a high-powered executive like David King, the FBI takes the lead. Did Spike NOT do his home work?

Denzel is in every scene and that can be a bit too much. I wished to see more of the police work to find the kidnapper, but that falls to Denzel and his chauffeur. Which wouldn't happen in real life. An executive of a record company wouldn't go on the hunt himself. IMO. He would have security do it. Which was also a head-scratcher. The music executive did not have a bodyguard. Even JayZ has a bodyguard.

If you have Apple TV, I would recommend you wait for Highest2Lowest, it will be streaming in a week.

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.