Highest 2 Lowest & Spike's 2Sides 

When Spike Lee came onto the scene in the 1980s, he was brash, progressive, and equipped with a totally singular vision. I don't know if there's a better movie that sums up the Regan-era decade than Do The Right Thing. It's a movie that's as poignant today as it was in 1989. That movie is so absolutely, individually Spike, and it's remembered as a classic because of that.

Lee has gone on to become one of the leading voices of New York cinema. As he matured, so did his movies and his style. In 1992, he released probably my favourite biopic of all time, Malcolm X. In that movie, we saw the young visionary from Brooklyn take on the gargantuan task of telling the story of one of Black America's most popular and polarizing figures. It earned him Oscar recognition and proved that Lee was more than just a New Yorker with a loud mouth.

By the 2000s, Lee was a household name and he was making movies that were undoubtably great but that aren't remembered for their abrasive style. Take Inside Man, for example. It's one of his best movies, but, if you didn't know, you'd never guess that Lee directed it. I didn't even know that he directed it until a few years ago. That's because his famous style largely vanished. It's a brilliant crime caper, but it doesn't have any monologues about love and hate, no black-and-white/colour visual contrast, no hyper closeups while a character screams over his scuffed sneakers.

Through the decades, the director proved that he's a switch hitter. He can make something hyperstylized and auteur-esque like Chi-Raq and something that's more straight-forward but still powerful like BlacKkKlansman. His latest feature, Highest 2 Lowest tries to blend these two styles into one movie.

For a movie that is only tangentially related to basketball, Highest 2 Lowest is obsessed with the New York Knicks. No, the NBA team doesn't have anything to do with the story, but if you are familiar with Spike's public persona, you know that he goes to every Knicks home game. The movie also spends more than enough time sticking it to Boston, whether that be the Red Sox or the Celtics. Other than taking insults out of nowhere, Boston has nothing to do with this story.

This is Spike as his abrasive self. He will derail his own movie to get his real-life messaging, if you can call it that, across. He is going to have a character yell, "Boston sucks!" into the camera multiple times. He's going to have the opening credits in Knicks orange. It's weird, it's unnecessary, but it's undoubtedly Spike.

Then there's all the strange dialogue in the early parts of the movie. David King (Denzel Washington) complains about how his son is on the phone all the time. He also complains about the progress of AI and how it relates to art. These tangents give off major boomer energy, and it's a thin veil for King acting as the mouthpiece for Lee's personal perceptions of the modern age. I guess that makes this dialogue realistic, but it's not very artful.

Elsewhere, Lee takes a total backseat to the film. He still directs with a deft skill that comes from directing over 20 pictures. He's willing to let the music score become overtly cinematic in order to establish the story and setting, and confirm to the audience that they are watching a movie. The camera dollies across smooth floors, tracking the characters effortlessly. At times, it feels like you could be watching a movie made by anyone. At other times, the skill is so spectacular that it's just another reminder that Spike is a master filmmaker.

When Lee's avante-garde tendencies mix with his classical cinematic reverence, it should be transcendent, but sometimes it's perplexing. The train sequence, for example, is absolutely amazing, but with an oddball twist. The tension, built through smart cuts and didactic pacing, make the tension ultra thick. Yet, Spike backs this scene with a score that does anything but build tension. While the stakes are high and the editing is rapid-fire, the music takes on this laidback tone that undercuts the bubbling build-up. It took me out of the scene, but I still appreciated how wonderful the sequence was. I just wish, in this instance, that Spike let the whole scene be what it needed to be — with the correct score of tension-filled strings and bass — rather than pressing his trademark style on it. But that's Spike for you. He gives the audience what we need, while still keeping himself entertained/challenged.

After a slow start, and before a forgetful ending, the movie's best parts come in the middle, when it focuses on the planned kidnapping of King's son. This is where the movie borrows most from one of its source materials, Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. If you've seen that silver-screen classic, you are familiar with the moral dilemma that King faces in this Spike Lee joint.

Once it gets into this story, the movie is a joy to watch. Denzel, even when not totally changing the game, is an acting maverick. I loved the sequence when he learns that it's not his kid but his confidant's kid, and he must decide if he is still going to fork over the millions of dollars to save his life. The hours click past midnight, the mental and physical exhaustion rests heavily on his head. When a quiet enlightenment strikes him, his subdued reaction speaks volumes about his character.

Just like Tsutomu Yamazaki was my favourite character in High and Low, A$AP Rocky is the highlight of this adaptation. He plays the orchestrator of the kidnapping and he has a fascinating arc. I loved his showdown with King on the train. King holds his head near the train tracks and Rocky (whose character name is Yung Felon) begs for him to let him go. "Just let me die, man," is what he says. This simple line and its placement in the movie explains everything you need to know about Yung Felon's motivation. He's the lowest, living for nothing, and wishing for his death to come ASAP.

However, it's also within the Yung Felon story that Spike feels the most out of touch. I couldn't help but feel that Spike's perception of the lowest of the low was skewed by his 30+ years in the limelight. It's like, have you ever asked a rich guy how much money he'd need to survive — like just the basics? They're always way over what a person really needs. They'd say like $15k a month minimum. And it's like, bro, you don't need that much. Being rich for so long has skewed their vision of what poverty is. That's kind of the energy I felt from Spike's 2025 portrayal of "the bottom."

King is obviously the high, as referred to in the movie's title, and Yung Felon is the low. However, as we get closer to Yung Felon, I couldn't help but feel like his life was not that pitiful. He has a wife and an infant son. His apartment, although in a project-housing building, is honestly pretty nice. His music career may not be where he wants it to be, but he's still finding time to get in the studio. That's not to mention all the friends he has in his gang, the ones who help him successfully take the ransom money away from King. Yung Felon's struggles don't seem that real, but his actions reek of desperation.

In the end, this is a quality movie, even if the very beginning and very ending are sluggish. I love to see Spike continue to experiment with the form, even if that means clashing the two styles that he has mastered. I'd recommend this movie to anyone and everyone. If you can resist the urge to turn it off in the first 20 minutes, you'll be rewarded with a tight-knit thriller that emphasizes why Spike is one of the best directors in the game. Oh, and go Celtics.