Plot
David King is a New York City music mogul, considered to have the "best ears in the business" and the founder of Stackin' Hits Records. Having once sold his majority interest in the company, King intends to buy back majority ownership to avert a buyout by a rival label. To regain majority ownership, King offers to buy out one of his two partners’ shares. To raise the cash for the deal, he puts up most of his personal assets, including his Dumbo penthouse home and impressive collection of art by contemporary Black artists, as collateral.
The day the deal is to go through, King receives an anonymous call from a kidnapper, demanding $17.5 million in Swiss 1,000-franc notes for the safe return of his son Trey. King immediately contacts the police and agrees with his wife Pam to pay the ransom, even though it risks the cash he needs for his business deal. However, Trey is soon found safe as the kidnapper has mistakenly taken Kyle, Trey's best friend and the son of King's driver and confidant Paul Christopher.
The kidnapper still demands the money in exchange for Kyle's life. Despite King's earlier willingness to ransom his own son, he is reluctant to do the same for Kyle. Paul and Trey both plead with King to save Kyle. King's partner warns that failing to do so will hurt the company's image. After a long night of soul-searching, King agrees to pay the ransom.
Following the kidnapper's instructions, King packs the money in an Air Jordan backpack, which the police mark with a GPS tracker, goes to Brooklyn's Borough Hall subway stop, and gets on a train to Yankee Stadium. Near the stadium, the kidnapper calls King and orders him to go between the train cars. Then an accomplice triggers the emergency brake, the train jerks to a halt, and the bag falls between the cars and through the ironwork of the elevated line to the street. Another accomplice of the kidnapper, riding a moped, catches it, and the bag is subsequently handed off between additional accomplices on mopeds several times as they make their escape through the nearby Puerto Rican Day Parade. When the police manage to catch the bagman, the money has already been removed. Kyle is released in a nearby park.
King's actions have made him a hero to the public, and several songs by Stackin' Hits are climbing the charts. Still, King's lenders for the $17.5 million say he must pay them back in two weeks, or they will begin seizing the collateral he used to secure the loan as it would be considered fraud since the money was agreed to only be used for the buy out. Their reason is that King broke the terms of their contract by using the money to pay Kyle's ransom instead of for purchasing shares of Stackin' Hits. Kyle is unable to identify his kidnapper, but recalls hearing a distinctive hip-hop track while he was captive. King, listening to a playlist of demo tracks that Trey usually puts together for him to listen to, recognizes the song and realizes that the artist, Yung Felon, must be the kidnapper. The police dismiss this lead, so King and Paul, both armed, track down Yung Felon's address themselves. King meets his wife and infant son. She tells him that Felon is an ex-convict and aspiring rapper who idolizes King. Believing he wants to sign Felon to his label, Felon's wife directs King to his recording studio, where he confronts Felon. In an impromptu rap battle, Felon explains that he saw King as a father figure and resorted to the kidnapping plot after being ignored by him for years. A gunfight breaks out and Felon flees onto a nearby elevated subway train. King chases him to the platform and onto the train, finally catching Felon between cars and knocking him unconscious.
King offers Paul a chance to be part of the new label. Paul, who has injured his left eye in the gunfight with Felon, says that it's time for him and his son to do something new. Yung Felon, who has become the most-streamed musical artist in the world, takes a plea deal, accepting a 25-year prison sentence, in return for King meeting him face-to-face. When they meet, Felon tries to convince King to sign him, saying that they both will make a lot of money. King reveals that he has left Stackin' Hits Records to create a new, smaller label, and rejects Felon, who explodes in anger and disappointment.
Back at their penthouse home, King, Pam, and Trey audition Sula, a young singer-songwriter discovered by Trey. Her performance of her song "Highest 2 Lowest", wows the Kings, who offer to sign her to their new label.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 86% of 212 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Spike Lee and Denzel Washington remix a classic with vibrantly contemporary results in Highest 2 Lowest, a swaggering thriller that lovingly showcases New York City." [24] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [25]
Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com gave the film three and a half out of four stars and wrote, "While many will come to Highest 2 Lowest craving the angst of Kurosawa's masterpiece, for once Lee isn't setting out to copy what was great before. He is using the past as a starting point to launch into what may be the final phase of his career. He is wielding a plethora of inspirations—musical, cinematic, and historical—to reunite with an old friend. He is making a Spike Lee joint. And it's exceptional." [26] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a B, writing "Lee is so much more interesting for what he brings to a project than for what he takes away from it, and Highest 2 Lowest is naturally at its best when it deviates from its source material." [27] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote a similarly positive review, writing "Lee turns the story into what is one of his most personal films, both emotionally and intellectually" and "Oddly, the move comes not as a renunciation but as a new adventure. The movie’s subject may be production, but the director is striking boldly out into a strange new artistic world." [28]
Donald Clark of The Irish Times gave it two out of five stars and wrote, "Too much of Highest 2 Lowest feels knocked off in a hugely expensive hurry." and "The film is never boring, but, once that delightful opening winds down, the action clunks where it should purr." [29]
