What a joy to see Denzel Washington running through a subway station looking almost as trim and fit as he did 25 years ago during his Oscar-winning role in Training Day.
But this time, in Highest 2 Lowest, his fifth collaboration with acclaimed director Spike Lee, he is the good guy in a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s classic film High and Low.
The story takes a while to get rolling but the set-up is enjoyable to watch if you dig seeing Denzel as a ultra-successful record label chief with a drop dead penthouse apartment overlooking the New York skyline and an equally stunning wife (Ilfenesh Hadera), along with a high schooler who looks to be on a path to success in either basketball or music. Maybe both.
They’re the King family, and they certainly live like it, although Denzel’s David King is in the thorny process of trying to transfer ownership of the record label he created, which isn’t as successful as it was in the past.
The plot thickens when the family receives a call that their son has been kidnapped during a lunch break from his basketball camp, under the leadership of basketball legend Rick Fox.
The ransom demand: $17.5 million, funds that King needs for his record label deal.
Then there’s a twist. The actual kidnapped victim is the boy’s good friend and the son of King’s driver, played by Jeffrey Wright. So does King do the right thing, to coin a title of another Spike Lee joint?
That’s when the action really picks up in this crime thriller, in theaters now but also soon to be seen on Apple TV+.
The New York City subway chase scene is simply thrilling, and so is the appearance of A$AP Rocky as an aspiring rapper who is also the mastermind of the kidnapping and the ensuing heist of the ransom money.
Perhaps you haven’t lived until you see Denzel Washington in a rap battle with him. Maybe not exciting as the battles in Eminem’s 8 Mile but still, an unexpected twist and a first for Washington on screen.
It’s not going to with any Grammy awards but Highest 2 Lowest may be worth seeing just for the mano a mano between these two men of different generations.
