Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Ave, Oakland
For well over two hours, the score swelled, repeated, abated. Men spoke, stared at each other tensely, and ran around New York City at break-neck speeds. Cameos from famous actors, athletes, and musical artists came and went to cheers from the audience, but little effect on screen. Few moments seemed believable, and rarely was a sincere emotion shared. Tensions rose but faltered, and as multiple plot lines criss-crossed one another both a family drama and commentary on the music industry, the attention economy, and the extreme classism and economic disparity, were lost in the mix. Spike Lee’s latest film “Highest 2 Lowest,” a remake of the 1963 Japanese film “Hight and Low”, itself based upon 1959 novel King’s Ransom, out in theaters now, is a lot to take in. But not in a great way.
David King (Denzel Washington) stands tall but troubled as a waning music mogul married to a woman nearly half his age (Ilfenesh Hadera). Does he risk their cushy life and surface-level relationship to return to his true musical roots? But then—of course—a crisis requiring $17.5 million, leveraging their golden darling teenage son, and then the son of King’s chauffeur, ex-con and ride-or-die Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright, with by far the best performance of the film, imho)—spins the tale into a new direction.
A handful of aggressive product placement spots, including the extended opening shot (!!!!), the complete lack of female characters of substance, and the bad writing made for a tough time for me. Much of the script felt stilted but not taken far enough to feel intentional or campy, not self-aware or tongue-in-cheek. Jokes and nods—Yung Felon’s apartment is a24, his studio at 333 Trinity; King’s take on AI “A-E-I-O-U”; the artist his son discovers “looks like a light-skinned-ed Zendaya”.
Two musical moments stood out positively, the first an unnecessary and wildly over-extended but very fun tribute to now late Eddie Palmieri and orchestra amid the Puerto Rican Day Parade and thriller chase scene, which felt incongruous with the rest of the tempo and content of the film. The second, an immediately catchy number from Yung Felon (A$AP Rocky), also employed diegetically, plays a (pretty obviously) important role in the plot. The acting is fine, if unremarkable, the city scenes and luxury pent-house art lovely to take in, but those pieces hardly make up for the wasted potential at hand. I’m off to watch Kurasawa’s version, thank you very much, but if you want to hit a theater, probably go see Weapons instead.
