Almost 20 years after Spike Lee and Denzel Washington joined forces for the 2006 thriller Inside Man, the duo are lastly again collectively for the reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese movie Excessive and Low. Titled Highest 2 Lowest, the neo-noir crime thriller made its premiere on the Cannes Movie Competition yesterday and has debuted to a powerful Rotten Tomatoes rating of 91%, signifying that Lee and Washington may have one other hit on their arms when the movie hits theaters later this 12 months.
Additionally starring Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, ASAP Rocky, and Ice Spice in her movie debut, Highest 2 Lowest options Washington as David King, a music mogul who’s broadly recognized for having the “finest ears within the enterprise.” When he is focused with a ransom plot, King finds himself jammed up in a life-or-death ethical dilemma.
Critic Matt Neglia from Subsequent Greatest Image notes that the movie is not only a “welcome reunion between two of cinema’s greats,” but additionally a “triumphant work from a filmmaker who has well up to date a narrative to debate related and private themes whereas by no means compromising his voice.” Peter Debruge from Selection provides:
“In the long run, Lee has taken Excessive and Low to new highs, delivering a soul-searching style film that entertains whereas additionally sounding the alarm about the place the tradition could possibly be headed.”
Robert Daniels from RogerEbert.com additionally notes that Highest 2 Lowest is “unabashedly epic, fearlessly humorous, and proudly Black,” whereas additionally declaring that it “would possibly derive from a Japanese filmmaker, however its soul clearly resides in Lee.” David Ehrlich from IndieWire echoes these sentiments, saying, “Highest 2 Lowest is of course at its finest when it deviates from its supply materials.”
Extra to return…