The Stream: It’s too long and disjointed.

The Big Screen: A couple great scenes with Denzel and Rocky.

The Final Bill: A solid movie that doesn’t feel like Spike Lee joint.

– S2S: Movie Reviews
Director: Spike Lee
Writers: Evan Hunter, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni
Stars: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Drama, Crime
Rating: R (strong language, gun violence, violence)
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes
Production Companies: 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, A/Vantage Pictures, A24
Platform: Apple TV+ released on September 5, 2025
Coming soon to Apple TV+: All of You, The Lost Bus, The Last Frontier, Pluribus, Lucky, Down Cemetery Road, Dolly, Bride

Welcome back, Streamers! We finally caught up to the hype train this week. We were able to watch Spike Lee’s latest film, Highest 2 Lowest. In this joint, Denzel Washington stars as David King, a music mogul, who is targeted with a ransom plot. When the ransom plot goes awry, King is confronted with a moral dilemma having to decide where his money is best served. Denzel mannerisms and Bronx hijinks ensues.

Let’s just note that this is the fifth tag team between Spike Lee and Denzel on the silver screen. Also, this Spike Lee joint is a loose adaptation of an Akira Kurosawa classic crime thriller, High and Low. Here, the story is reimagined as a contemporary American story in the mean streets of the Bronx, New York City where hip hop began. You know Spike loves to bring it all back to NYC, but as much as this is heavily Bronx influenced, the movie doesn’t really feel like a Spike Lee joint. In fact, it is clear that Spike didn’t write this movie and that may be its biggest issue. The movie is speaking to something cultural whether it’s the music industry, Gen Z and their consumption of music, respect for their elders, social media/viral popularity, living in NYC, and a lot more. We all know Spike has something to say in his movies, but this movie felt more like it’s telling you what it is and less like an interactive dialogue between the movie and the audience. The movie didn’t feel as connected as I would like if I’m comparing it to a Da 5 Bloods, which was actually partially written by Lee and others.  The main saving grace of this movie are two scenes between Denzel and A$AP Rocky.  Without these scenes, this movie would be forgotten in the vast streaming universe of infinity things to watch.

Long story short, the hype monster led Highest 2 Lowest to be over sold and under delivered.   Denzel does what Denzel does but was he right for the role? The movie speaks but doesn’t drive home a coherent point about current culture as a derivative piece from the source material.  Ultimately, Spike produces quality work, but it is not up to par with his other works. This movie is great for streaming, but I’d be a bit underwhelmed if I saw this in the theater.