Highest 2 Lowest Review: Denzel Washington Stars in Bumpy Spike Lee Joint

Denzel Washington and Spike Lee return for their fifth collaboration with Highest 2 Lowest, an American remake of the iconic Japanese film High and Low.

Synopsis:

When a powerful music mogul (Washington) is targeted by a ransom plot, he is forced to fight for his family and legacy while jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma.

Cast:

Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, ASAP Rocky, Jeffrey Wright

Release Date: Streaming Now

Commanding Performance As Always From Denzel

Credit: A24

The least shocking thing to come out of this movie is that Denzel Washington is the standout with his performance. I've gone on record many times saying that Denzel is one of the greatest working actors right now and he really keeps you intrigued with this film throughout its entire runtime. The role asks him to show a whole range of emotions, starting with cautioned joy and transforming into extreme determination. There's a huge emotional factor due to what happens to a member of his family early in the film, but Denzel makes sure that his character doesn't ever let his emotions get the better of him. There's no scene where he's all out crying or screaming, but instead he stays composed and lets his words speak louder than his actions. He delivers all his dialogue with perfection and it really grips you from the beginning of the main conflict of the film.

There's one scene which feels like this film's best sequence and Denzel is seriously incredible within those 15 minutes or so. It clearly takes him back to some of his earlier action roles and seeing how his character responds when things start to break down was really interesting. This had to be a really hard sequence to act out and Denzel is one of the only ones who could do it without any identifiable mistakes. The final scene is another one which is so impactful and meaningful, due in part to Lee's writing but also an incredible acting job by Washington.

Lee's Direction and Fox's Writing Impresses

Credit: Deadline

Another unsurprising detail coming out of watching Highest 2 Lowest was the strong direction from Spike Lee. Lee is obviously known as one of the more iconic directors of all time and clearly seems to know exactly what to get out of Washington. His directing style in this film is both simple and complicated, depending on what the scene asks for. There's many scenes where the camera doesn't cut and stays on the actors for an extended period of time, which allowed for a real personal touch at certain points. That's credit to Lee for trusting his cast, specifically Washington, to act out the script in a way that will resonate with the audience. But even when the plot lines are all converging together in stressful sequences, Lee's direction is still really good. That sequence I mentioned earlier was directed with incredible flair and really got me as invested as I possibly could for the outcome of the scene. There's some filmmaking problems with this film that I'll talk about later, but the direction side of things was absolutely not one of those problems.

This screenplay was written by Alan Fox and I really think he did a fantastic job of balancing the tones in the film. The more intense scenes have really snappy dialogue that both allow for the audience to understand the weight of the situation and also keep them on the edge of their seat. The slower scenes focus on the emotional side of things and again, allow for the actors to impress. I think the dialogue heavy scenes were some of the more impressive parts of this movie, due to the writer emphasizing the moral dilemma of the main plot. There's a big questioning of ethics very early on and the way they handle it isn't perfect, but still very good.

Odd Editing Style

Credit: A24

My main problem with this film is that the way it is edited is so incredibly strange. From what I've read it was a stylistic choice and I simply just cannot understand that choice. There's a lot of scenes that are really awfully spliced together, including many early on that made me question how enjoyable this project would really be. It got better towards the second half, but there were still certain sequences where the editing style really took me out of the movie. It's honestly hard to explain, but simply I don't think this is edited in a way that makes it engaging for the entire runtime. There's some points where shots even feel repeated and they don't even line up with the cut that came before. It probably doesn't seem like a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's something that just made it hard to watch at some points. Movies are meant to allow you to escape from the real world and when the editing is as bad as this was, it does the exact opposite of that.

Supporting Cast Could Use Improvement

Credit: A24

You are starting a losing battle when trying to put in an impressive acting performance in a movie with Denzel Washington, but I came away not sold on the performances of the rest of the supporting cast. This doesn't include Jeffrey Wright, who's great as always; especially in the scenes where he's pledging his loyalty to Denzel's character. When it comes to the rest of the cast though, I think their performances could've been a little improved. Rapper ASAP Rocky is obviously not known for acting, so you wouldn't expect a hugely impressive performance, but it was another thing that took me out of the film seeing him act alongside Washington. They have a couple extended scenes together and I think they would've gripped me more if Rocky had a slightly better performance. The script didn't ask much of the actors in David King's (Washington's character) family, Ilfenesh Hadera and Aubrey Joseph, but their mostly bland performances hurt some of those emotional scenes. Outisde of Washington and Wright, it was hard for me to get super invested in any of the other characters. Especially with Rocky's character, there's clearly more backstory there but I didn't really mind if they showed it or not. It's never great if you don't leave the audience wanting more at the end of a film and that's partly to the fault of this supporting cast.

Final Thoughts

Highest 2 Lowest is a solid remake of the original movie and does a lot of things that make it a fun watch. Good lead performance, great direction and a mostly really interesting plot. However, due to the editing and poor performances, this becomes something that's just good not great.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Highest 2 Lowest is currently ranked 26th out of 63 new releases that I've seen this year.

Editor's Note: I've included the top 20 from my 2025 new releases list, for editing purposes.