The newest Spike Lee joint, “Highest 2 Lowest,” is a cacophony of noise, and I’m not sure I mean it as a compliment.
The film tracks David King (Denzel Washington), a music mogul who has seen better days financially and professionally, but who continues to believe in “the music” over and against new developments in technology that could soon render authentic artistry obsolete—especially in the realm of African-American sound.
As it is, though, he has the benefit of a loving family at home to return to. That is, until his only son, a teenage music scout, is believed to have been kidnapped to extract a mountainous ransom that could all but bankrupt King.
Now, I should stop here, because even watching the movie up to this point in the story was a chore. It was not clear what the movie was trying to be in its first third, with various tonal shifts and even a scatterbrained score leaving me guessing. Celebrity cameos galore, right down to the Allstate Insurance “Mayhem” guy, were almost dizzying.
Add to that the fact that Denzel seemed to be virtually the only truly capable actor among the lot, and it slowly comes into focus that “Highest 2 Lowest” may just be what one quickly fears: A Denzel carry-job.
Don’t get me wrong: Jeffrey Wright is no slouch playing King’s best friend—an ex-con and Black Muslim who plays an obsequious butler-type role—but that’s about it. However, the script (from newcomer Alan Fox) does the other actors no favors, with on-the-nose dialogue deflating most areas of tension meant to drive the narrative along. The attempts at humor and suspense come off as forced, to the point of giving the film a campy flair that almost starts to make sense.
But then the final third rolls along, and the film settles into a Disney-esque resolution that introduces a character (A$AP Rocky) who probably should’ve been seen in the film all along. The final dialogues between him and King are masterful, and it’s unfortunate that they occupy all maybe 15 minutes in the film’s more than two-hour runtime.
It would seem that “Highest 2 Lowest” is, like many of Lee’s films, a love letter to New York, but this is also its downfall. What could have been a well-thought-out exploration of manhood, human dignity, and compassion instead becomes a scattershot social commentary and a cheap advertisement for the real-life New York rappers A$AP and Ice Spice.
In that regard, the film is a disappointment in that it has very little discernible identity. Washington is, naturally, a force of nature, but that is no excuse for an otherwise poorly written and acted work that only pretends to have a message.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
