One of Spike Lee’s best films of this century, Highest 2 Lowest is pure cinema. A soapy, sudsy, campy, bombastically performed meditation on morality, success, legacy, and loyalty, Lee’s latest joint relishes both the simple pleasures of moviemaking and its most potent forces. It blends stylish filmmaking and a breakneck pulse with a roaring sense of place and character to pay tribute to a fellow auteur great, making it a film that’s nearly impossible to look away from. Adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 High and Low, itself based on Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Highest 2 Lowest straddles genres effectively to paint a portrait of a man who has carved out his own little kingdom. That man, played with quicksilver ferocity by Denzel Washington, must reckon with what matters most as his world threatens to crumble around him from an escalating series of eternal forces. Read More