‘Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Denzel Washington Finds A Great Role And A$AP Rocky Finds A New Career In Spike Lee's Entertaining Kidnap Drama

Yet again a filmmaker has gone to the throne of Japanese giant Akira Kurosawa for inspiration. Among the lauded director's films Hollywood has turned into English-language adaptations are Seven Samurai, which became The Magnificent Seven twice (including once with Denzel Washington); Rashomon, which became Paul Newman's The Outrage; Ikiru, remade a few years ago as Living; Yojimbo, which led to an uncredited inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars; and 1958's Hidden Fortress, unquestionably an inspiration for George Lucas and Star Wars.
Now chalk up another one with Spike Lee's new take on Kurosawa's 1963 drama High and Low, in which Toshiro Mifune played a shoemaker executive who is torn between paying the ransom to his chauffeur's son's kidnapper after the criminal nabbed him by mistake instead of the executive's son, who was safe. It becomes a moral dilemma, especially as the exec really needs the money himself to save his business. What would you do, it asks?
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And that is exactly the setup for Lee's thrilling and entertaining new drama Highest 2 Lowest, which has been reset to the contemporary music industry with Washington as David King aka 'King David,' a hugely successful music mogul who finds his Stackin' Hits Records is about to be taken over and now has plans to start a new label and return to the top of the charts. When his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) and godson Kyle (Elijah Wright in a film debut) and son of his best friend and driver Paul (Jeffrey Wright) are mistaken for each other by the inept kidnapper, that criminal demands David pay the $17.5 million ransom anyway or Kyle dies. Again, what would you do?
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The riveting answer to what David will do is played out in this tense cat-and-mouse game. Should he refuse, he is told social media will just destroy him anyway for the heartless act of turning his back on his friend Paul and his son who are definitely living on a wildly different class level than the Kings do. But David is torn. He is convinced that a return to the top of the heap is imminent and all he needs is the money. Why give it up for someone else's child?
His wife Pam (IIfenesh Hadera) is distraught at first, thinking the guy had their son, but now has definite ideas of her own about how to proceed. There's also a trio of NYPD detectives on the case (Dean Winters, LaChanze, John Douglas Thompson). The tension mounts as they try to lure the kidnapper, who slyly barks his demands and tries to one-up David in some phone encounters. Will they be able to trace the calls? Can they find him? Who is he?
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Well, it turns out to be a guy whose life's dream was to be discovered by King David and handed a contract for Stackin' Hits as the next great rapper. His name in Yung Felon, and he is played in a sensational supporting turn by A$AP Rocky, whose romantic partner Marisol (Isis 'Ice Spice' Gaston) might hold the key to finding him.
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The first film shot in Lee's native NYC in more than a decade is one of his best. It has been in various forms of development over 30 years for the likes of David Mamet, Chris Rock and others, and now Washington helped get Lee on board with it for a new take from screenwriter Alan Fox, who adapts material from Ed McBain's book King's Ransom and the original Kurosawa movie. The premise fits like a glove with the music industry, and Washington is smooth as silk, delivering one of his best recent performances as a man caught in an impossible moral quandary. With his fifth collaboration with Lee (Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man, Mo Better Blues), he really finds his groove on this one to be sure.
His initial showdown in the recording studio through the music producer's glass window as Yung Felon is putting down a track is worth the price of admission, with Washington turning the encounter into a bravura rap that becomes one of the actor's finest screen moments. A$AP Rocky, who was seen in the film Monsters, proves he can go toe-to-toe with Washington and shows he has dramatic chops to shine here. Wright as always is superb, as is Hadera.
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As is the case with most Lee joints, this one has a superb, soaring musical score from Howard Drossin that really feels NYC to its core. Matthew Libatique's sharp cinematography also shows off New York City to its full potential here.
The film had its world premiere Monday night Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Lee debuted his masterpiece Do the Right Thing 36 years ago today.
Producers are Todd Black and Jason Michael Berman.
Title: Highest 2 LowestFestival: Cannes (Out of Competition)Distributors: A24 Films and Apple Original FilmsRelease date: August 22, 2025Director: Spike LeeScreenwriter: Alan FoxCast: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, IIfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, A$AP Rocky, Dean Winters, La Chanze, John Douglas Thompson, Isis 'Ice Spice' Gaston, Michael Potts, Rick Fox, Elijah WrightRating: RRunning time: 2 hr 14 min
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Jon Bernthal to play Punisher again in next 'Spider-Man' adventure

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Why this author wrote about creative women as they aged: ‘They made much of less'

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The perfect summer corn fritter to welcome you back to downtown L.A. restaurants

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[sometimes] kabocha pumpkin and puntarelle with blood orange and fermented chiles [or] a verdant pea and potato salad with lemon-y pea tendrils.' But my current favorite Clark dish? Those light and crisp corn fritters. They were the perfect welcome back downtown gift after a tense week of closed restaurants. 'I've ... had customers come in and tell me, 'The American dream doesn't exist anymore.'' That's Evelin Gomez, a juice bar worker at the Carson location of Vallarta Supermarket, speaking with reporter Lauren Ng. Ng checked social media accounts and conducted interviews with people in grocery stores and restaurants founded by immigrants and the children of immigrants about what they are witnessing with the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement actions in Southern California. The independent-minded Casa Vega owner Christy Vega, who supported Rick Caruso over Karen Bass for mayor in the most recent election, 'has been an outspoken critic of ICE,' Ng wrote. 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The young and ambitious staff at Vin Folk — with two alums of Aitor Zabala's Somni leading the team of chef-servers — charmed columnist Jenn Harris during her visits to the Hermosa Beach restaurant created by chefs Kevin de los Santos and Katya Shastova. 'The dining room crackles with the hopeful, earnest energy of a start-up company, ripe with possibility,' she writes in her restaurant review published this week. 'And with food that has all the technique and precision of a tasting menu restaurant with less of the fuss, it is without a doubt the most exciting place to eat in the South Bay in recent memory.' Some of the dishes she highlights: a savory tart that could be 'a love child of mussels in escabeche and pot pie'; headcheese toast, 'a loose interpretation of the patty melt at Langer's Deli'; pritto, 'a take on Taiwanese popcorn chicken'; 'exceptionally tender' beef tongue, 'an homage to Shastova's childhood in rural southern Russia,' and a risotto-style interpretation of Singapore chili crab. Vin Folk is also nurturing a new generation of chefs and restaurateurs: 'Staff are trained in multiple positions, both in and out of the kitchen,' Harris writes. 'Everyone helps with prep, then De los Santos and Shastova [place] members in positions where they may be strongest.' 'We are teaching them,' Shastova tells Harris. 'You go through everything because we believe it's important to learn every single detail of the restaurant if you want to have your own one day.' In her latest Grocery Goblin dispatch, correspondent Vanessa Anderson examines why strawberry red Fanta — 'known as Fanta nam daeng, or 'Fanta red water'' — is seen in so many Thai shrines or spirit houses, many of which are set up at local grocery stores and restaurants. 'Much like those on this earthly plane, the way to a spirit's heart is through his or her stomach,' Anderson reports. 'In the past when we would do offerings to ghosts, it would be an offering of blood,' Pip Paganelli at Thai dessert shop Banh Kanom Thai, tells Anderson, who concludes that 'the bubbly strawberry nectar has since replaced animal sacrifice.' Paganelli, Anderson adds, also posits that red Fanta's 'sickly sweetness ... is beloved by ghosts because of just that. Most spirits have a sweet tooth.' The anniversary none of our social media feeds or TV news anchors will let us forget this week is the release 50 years ago of Steven Spielberg's 'eating machine' blockbuster 'Jaws.' But columnist Gustavo Arellano has another anniversary on this mind this week — the debut 20 years ago of Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme. 'The item has become essential for American consumers who like their Mexican food cheap and gimmicky,' he wrote this week, 'which is to say, basically everyone (birria ramen, anybody?)' The plot twist is that Arellano, author of 'Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America,' had never actually eaten a Crunchwrap Supreme until this month. And when he finally did try it? Let's just say it lacked the crunch he was looking for. I'll let you read his column to find out why he prefers the bean-and-cheese burritos and Del Taco. Bonus: Arellano references Jenn Harris' 2015 story and recipe for a homemade Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme, to be enjoyed in the comfort of your home, without the 'bad playlists, scratchy paper napkins and fluorescent lighting' of a fast food restaurant. I think hers would have the crunch Arellano seeks.