HIGHEST 2 LOWEST
Rejoice!
Denzel Washington is back working with Spike Lee.
This time, their fifth movie collaboration is the thriller 'Highest 2 Lowest'.
But is it up there with their best work like 'Malcolm X' and 'Inside Man'?
A remake of Akira Kurosawa's acclaimed 1963 Japanese police procedural 'High and Low,' which was itself adapted from US crime writer Ed McBain's 'King's Ransom,' Lee's film locates the story in New York.
His movie, in fact, begins like a true love letter to the Big Apple, with Matthew Libatique's camera capturing stunning early morning images of the city which Denzel Washington's music mogul David King surveys from his penthouse apartment balcony in Brooklyn.
Married to Ilfenesh Hadera's glamorous Pam King, David is a legendary figure in the music industry but he is also at a professional crossroads, with his records label partner Michael Potts' Patrick Bethea keen for him to sell to a rival label.
Not ready to let it go, David instead tries to buy a majority stake in Stackin' Hits Records from his partner to prevent the buyout and reveals he is talking to financiers.
All is going swimmingly until David receives a phone call hours after leaving his son Aubrey Joseph's Trey and Elijah Wright's Kyle Christopher, the son of his driver and friend, Jeffrey Wright's Paul to basketball camp.
The caller demands a ransom of $17.5 million in Swiss Francs for Trey, sparking a major police operation headed by John Douglas Thompson's Detective Earl Bridges, Dean Winters' Detective Higgins and LaChanze's Detective Bell.
With word of the kidnapping hitting the New York media, David, Pam, Paul and the police are rattled when Trey turns up unharmed.
However Kyle is missing and that leaves David in a quandary.
Is he prepared to stump up a $17.5 million ransom for a friend and employee's son?
And when the kidnapper demands he deliver the cash in person on the New York subway, is he also prepared to risk his life and limb?
'Highest 2 Lowest' is a curious beast of a movie.
On the one hand, it's a classic hard boiled New York action thriller.
On the other, it's a drama that examines artistic and business integrity in the digital age.
On another level, it's a movie that really tests the bonds of friendship.
There's a lot of decent ideas going on in there.
However Lee and screenwriter Alan Fox's concoction feels just a bit too lumpy and not fully baked.
Clever plot twists that the movie might have taken never really materialise and it simply falls into the mould of an old fashioned Hollywood action thriller showdown.
Libatique's cinematography makes the movie gorgeous to watch.
And there is no doubt that Washington is magnetic as ever in the lead role, gelling well with Jeffrey Wright who delivers a dependable, rock solid supporting performance.
Hadera, Joseph, Wright, Bethea, Thompson, Winters and LaChanze also provide sturdy, if unspectacular support.
At one stage, Wendell Pierce pops up as Gabe, a representative of the financial backers behind David's plan to take control of Stackin' Hits Records but he really has little to do.
ASAP Rocky, though, impresses in his biggest screen role to date.
Confrontational and cocky, he fuels two of the film's more electrifying moments when his character engages David in verbal sparring matches where they discuss fame in the digital age.
Previous Lee collaborators Nicholas Turturro and Rosie Perez appear - the former as a Yankees fan and the latter as herself.
However the weirdest thing about 'Highest 2 Lowest' is its jarring musical score by Howard Drossin which is too intrusive and distracting - especially at the start of the movie.
It also sits uncomfortably alongside tracks by James Brown, ASAP Rocky, Jensen McRae, Aiyana Lee and the Scottish pianist Fergus McCreadie whose Celtic melodies are an odd choice to accompany the film's actions sequences.
'Highest 2 Lowest' is far from being the worst of Lee's work
However it's also a long way away from his best.
The film is certainly not dull and there's great ideas in there but it just doesn't feel coherent enough.
('Highest 2 Lowest' received its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2025 before being made available for streaming on Apple TV+ on September 5, 2025)
SATURDAY NIGHT
Let's go from one showbiz tale to another.
Jason Reitman's 'Saturday Night' is a biographical comedy drama about NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' - the satirical comedy show that launched the careers of many of North America's best known comedians.
If you look at the roll call of Hollywood movie stars who have graduated from the show over the years it's undoubtedly impressive.
John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Michael McKean, Norm McDonald, Maya Rudolph, Al Franken, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Hader, Kate McKinnon, Tracy Morgan, Jason Sudeikis, Seth Myers, Molly Shannon, Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig are just some of those stars whose careers "SNL" has propelled.
However Reitman and his fellow screenwriter Gil Kenan focus their film on the build up to the first 'SNL' show in October 1975.
Hopping between various set pieces involving Gabriel LaBelle's Lorne Michaels, stars of the show, writers and production staff, Reitman's film revels in the behind the scenes chaos.
Consequently, we see Michaels' show creator juggling the demands of trying to get 'SNL' on air while pursuing Matt Wood's combustible John Belushi around the set in a bid to get him to sign his contract.
Cory Michael Smith's Chevy Chase is cocky until his ego is brutally cut down to size by JK Simmons' comedy legend Milton Berle who hits on the SNL star's girlfriend while visiting the set.
.
Tommy Dewey's head writer Michael O'Donoghue battles with the NBC censor by inserting risque jokes in the scripts and mocking her religious beliefs.
Matthew Rhys' guest host, the anarchic comedian George Carlin is extremely vocal about his belief that the show is crap, while Willem Dafoe and Cooper Hoffman's NBC executive David Tebet and Dick Ebersol ratchet up the pressure on Michaels by urging him to go for broke while bringing TV station executives from across the country to view the broadcast.
Lamorne Morris' Garrett Morris suffers from imposter syndrome while Billy Crystal frets about his contribution to the show being cut and Nicholas Braun wanders about in dual roles as the quirky comedian Andy Kaufman and the Muppets creator Jim Henson.
All of this is performed mostly in a frenetic Aaron Sorkin "walk and talk" style, while Jon Baptiste's jazz soundtrack pounds a la 'Birdman' and only heightens the 'Uncut Gems' style tension.
However just like the show it celebrates, 'Saturday Night' isn't quite the sum of its parts.
It's a curate's egg of a movie - with some sequences dragging and others hitting their mark.
Kenan and Reitman's screenplay celebrates the behind the scenes madness of putting on a live comedy show but is undoubtedly too deferential to Michaels and the 'SNL' team.
And while LaBelle delivers a good anchor performance and Eric Steelberg's roving camera work impresses, the film is too enamoured in particular with the show's male comedians.
The contributions of Ella Hunt's Gilda Radner and Kim Matula's Jane Curtin are largely pushed aside in favour of Wood and Smith's rather annoying Belushi and Chase.
Simmons and Dafoe add heft to the film, while Rhys, Braun, Hunt and Matula and Robert Wuhl as the show's director feel under deployed.
And as you watch Dylan O'Brien's spot on vocal impersonation of Dan Aykroyd, it's hard to escape the though that film is basically a series of impersonations.
With a UK version of 'SNL' in the works, Reitman's film offers a chance to reflect on its contribution to satirical comedy.
The fact is that the NBC show's reputation has always been overblown.
It has only been sporadically funny for decades and in terms of actual satire its not nearly as amusing or effective as 'South Park,' 'The Simpsons,' 'The Daily Show' John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight' or the late night talk shows.
If it was, Brendan Carr would be looking to shut it down like 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' or 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert'.
If ever there was a time for effective satire, it's now.
So let's see if 'SNL,' either in its US or UK versions, can answer that call.
Given its history, I wouldn't bet on it.
('Saturday Night' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on January 31, 2025 and is currently available to stream on Sky and NowTV)
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