Close to 20 years since their last film, “Inside Man,” and more than 30 years since their iconic depiction of “Malcolm X,” proud New Yorkers Denzel Washington and director Spike Lee still know how to captivate their audience through a press run.
“All money ain’t good money, Jerry!” Mr. Washington exclaims on the ESPN sports show “First Take,” in a commentary about Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Mr. Lee playfully eggs him on: “Say it again!”
It’s part of the promo for “Highest 2 Lowest,” their fifth film together, which opened in theaters on Aug. 15.
Why We Wrote This
In their new film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” Spike Lee and Denzel Washington continue a partnership that began in the 1990s and still, more than 30 years later, represents a gold standard for Black Hollywood’s past and present, our commentator writes.
We’ve seen the duo at their highest as Malcolm (Mr. Washington) and Shorty (Mr. Lee), the zoot-suit-wearing, smooth-talking childhood friends walking past the Dudley Street Station in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. That dramatic opening scene in “Malcolm X” kicked off a nearly three-hour movie that introduced a generation to the human rights icon.
We’ve seen their characters at their lowest as Bleek Gilliam (Mr. Washington) and Giant (Mr. Lee) in “Mo’ Better Blues.” In their first collaboration in 1990, Bleek is the self-absorbed trumpeter and Giant his manager with the compulsive gambling habit. In the movie’s climactic scene, Giant gets jumped by a pair of loan sharks during one of Bleek’s sets, and when the trumpeter intervenes, he suffers an injury that ends his musical career.
And the camera shots! The director’s signature move – the “double dolly shot” – makes a motionless actor look like he or she is moving through time and space. Instead of one camera and operator on wheels to record action, Mr. Lee adds a second – and places an actor directly across from the camera. In “Malcolm X,” the shot was focused on Mr. Washington and used as foreshadowing of X’s eventual assassination. In “Mo’ Better Blues,” Mr. Lee was famously in front of the camera displaying Giant’s terror when the bookie came calling.
Moving through time and space is a good way to view both men’s careers. They are men out of time, and yet, feel timeless. Their decades-long careers in Hollywood are a reminder of the hard-fought gains of actors such as Oscar-winning pioneers Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel. But the recent creative run of director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan also shows that Mr. Washington and Mr. Lee are predecessors to the current generation.
Mr. Lee had a one-word answer for sports podcast host Bill Simmons when asked what was his favorite movie of the year (that wasn’t his): “Sinners.” After explaining that Mr. Coogler invited him to a screening in Los Angeles, Mr. Lee deadpanned that he would probably never be invited to another showing again. He was “jumping up and down” in his seat as though his beloved New York Knicks were beating the Boston Celtics.
“That film was transformative,” Mr. Lee said. “That film took me to another place.”
For “Highest 2 Lowest,” a remake of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa film “High to Low,” Mr. Lee is revisiting another clever collaboration, “Inside Man” – the crime drama.
Mr. Washington stars as David King, a music producer with a golden ear whose son seemingly becomes the center of a kidnapping plot. Joining Mr. Washington is another acclaimed actor, Jeffrey Wright, who plays King’s right-hand man, and rapper A$AP Rocky, who holds his own alongside Mr. Washington as the film advances. Further, all of the trademarks that fans of Lee and Washington love are present, whether it’s the director’s cinematography or the superstar’s megawatt smile.
When the movie isn’t busy taking viewers through the streets and subways of New York, it remarks upon Black achievement through mementos in King’s home. There’s Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, whom Mr. Wright portrayed in his first starring film role. As Mr. Lee ties a bow at the end of his interpretation of Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” he even celebrates the literary legacies of Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. It is a fitting gallery to appreciate living legends, and both Lee and Washington, whether in front of or behind the camera, fit the bill.
As for the movie itself, it’s a film that gets better as it goes along, and like “Mo’ Better Blues,” it ends with a self-absorbed music man recalibrating his heart to find a sense of family. But it is a hard-fought sense of perspective that takes our protagonist from highest to lowest, and back up the mountaintop.
What’s most rewarding about this film, though, is the staying power of the two leading men. They’re graying around the beard, but still show that they have what it takes around Hollywood.
In other words, they still got game.
