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Obsession, written and directed by Curry Barker, has snagged a May 2026 release date, with Focus Features and Blumhouse teaming up to distribute the film.
Posted in: A24, Apple, Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review | Tagged: highest 2 lowest
Highest 2 Lowest Review: Moments of Brilliance Without A Throughline
Highest 2 Lowest might not entirely come together, but Lee is an interesting enough director and writer that it's not boring even when it doesn't work.
Article Summary
- Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest showcases flashes of brilliance but struggles with narrative cohesion throughout.
- Denzel Washington returns as lead, but Jeffrey Wright's charismatic performance truly steals the spotlight.
- The film riffs on Kurosawa's High and Low, shifting the plot into the New York music industry.
- Jarring tonal shifts and inconsistent performances hold the movie back, despite strong direction and music.
Highest 2 Lowest features all of the trademarks of director Spike Lee, the good and the bad aspects of what that is, and while there are moments of brilliance, the pieces of this film never quite come together as a coherent whole.
Director: Spike Lee
Summary: When a titan music mogul is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma.
There is something to be said about directors who have a consistent style and tone to the point that their names become adjectives. A Wes Anderson film can be varying levels of Wes Anderson, and director Spike Lee is no different. Lee is also a director whose films sometimes don't exactly come together, but they are always projects where you can clearly see the love and attention brought to every detail. Maybe the entire film doesn't form a cohesive whole, but it's never boring, and Lee is back to the higher end of his mid-tier with Highest 2 Lowest. From the jump cuts to an angry Yankees fan breaking the fourth wall and screaming, "Boston sucks," the trademarks are here, but the pieces don't quite fit.
Several of the performances are all over the place, but Jeffrey Wright is by far the most magnetic presence on screen. Once things hit the metaphorical fan in Highest 2 Lowest, we really begin to see his place in the world of the King family. The movie is better every single time Wright is on screen, and his place in the film is, by far, the most interesting one out of all of the characters. While our protagonist is David King, as played by Denzel Washington, it's Wright as Paul Christopher who runs away with the entire film without breaking a sweat.
This is the first time Washington and Lee have collaborated since 2006, and the performance that Lee pulls out of Washington is interesting. King is not a likable character, not even a little, and he keeps doing and saying things that make it harder and harder to sympathize with him. At the end of the day, for most of the film, David puts money above everything else, and his arc is accepting that there are some things more important than money, like overall health and happiness, and the literal life of another human being.
The rest of the cast of Highest 2 Lowest doesn't make that much of an impression overall. Ilfenesh Hadera has the most inconsistent performance, leading to nearly everything about her becoming a little uncanny. Once the kidnapping occurs, she has some of the strangest reactions over and over again, and it takes you right out of the movie because no one would act like that. While it's said that most of Hollywood has done some hard time in Law & Order, it feels very deliberate to cast Dean Winters as one of the detectives in the NYPD, considering his background in both SVU and Brooklyn 99.
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- Denzel Washington. Credit: David Lee
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- Ilfenesh Hadera. Credit: Courtesy of A24
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- Aubrey Joesph, Elijah Wright. Credit: David Lee
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- Jeffrey Wright. Credit: David Lee
Our other two officers, LaChanze and John Douglas Thompson, also have a bunch of New York-based crime drama credits between them. The NYPD isn't exactly portrayed as the heroes here, but they're not evil either, and considering how the NYPD has treated people of color in the past, the fact that the NYPD isn't horrible in this movie might be the closest Spike Lee has come to being neutral. And singer/composer Aiyana-Lee Anderson makes an impression just by having some of the most insane vibrato control I've seen in a long time.
Music is a massive part of Highest 2 Lowest. In Akira Kurosawa's 1963 Japanese film High and Low, upon which this is loosely based, our rich guy was in the business of shoes, which is also the case in the Kurosawa film's book source King's Ransom by Ed McBain, published in 1959. While shoes have always had a connection to New York City and black culture, for audiences, being the head of a shoe company and being a record CEO would be seen differently in terms of status, no matter what the actual numbers are. This change also has an impact on the motivations of everyone involved, from King to the kidnapper, and what everyone ultimately ends up desiring and achieving by the time the credits roll. The connection to music and art makes everyone seem slightly less motivated by money alone.
That connection also means there is a lot of original music, and while much of it is good, there are moments where it becomes very strange. The film opens with a cover of "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning" by Norm Lewis, which is about as musical as it gets. Then there are moments when the soundtrack changes, and it's playing out in a way like someone is about to break into a musical number. Considering the subject material, this was likely very intentional on behalf of composer Howard Drossin, but it can feel a bit jarring at times.
All of these pieces of Highest 2 Lowest converge into a film that just doesn't quite fit together. The first act in particular really stumbles, and while things get better by the time the second act hits, the film is too sporadic to feel cohesive. There are all of these pieces from what, at times, appear to be completely different movies, all laid out in front of you. Those pieces, as stand-alone moments, are pretty good, and if that was all that was needed to make a good movie, then that would be enough. However, you can't make a good film out of a bunch of loosely tied together pieces where tone and sometimes genre rapidly shift.
Highest 2 Lowest is not the worst film Spike Lee has made, but it's also far from one of his best. On paper and even while watching some individual scenes, all of it should have worked. The throughline between those good pieces is practically non-existent, and while it means individual scenes are going to be all over social media with people loving all of the details, that lack of throughline keeps Highest 2 Lowest from achieving the high you can see right on the horizon. It might not entirely come together, but Lee is an interesting enough director and writer that even when it doesn't work, it's not boring.
It's one thing to fall apart; it's another to be boring, and if you're going to miss the mark, at least be interesting while you do, and Lee's films are always interesting. Right now, Highest 2 Lowest is getting buried at the box office, and it's unclear if A24 or Apple are to blame, but if the film fails to find an audience this weekend, maybe it'll have better luck on streaming next month. Lee, however, deserved better than distribution that only released a trailer 10 days before the movie came out.
Highest 2 Lowest
6.5/10
Highest 2 Lowest features all of the trademarks of director Spike Lee, the good and the bad aspects of what that is, and while there are moments of brilliance, the pieces of this film never quite come together as a coherent whole.
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