SYNOPSIS: In “Highest 2 Lowest,” the new film from director Spike Lee, Denzel Washington plays a music mogul faces a moral dilemma as he attempts to protect his friends and family from a kidnapping plot and stave off the takeover of his legendary record label, Stackin’ Hits Records.
CAST: Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, ASAP Rocky, and Ice Spice. Directed by Spike Lee.
REVIEW: When Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” a modern-day reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film “High and Low,” is firing on all cylinders it is a thing of propulsive beauty. A subway chase sequence, based on the car chase in “The French Connection,” is edge of your seat stuff, and a showdown between music mogul David King (Denzel Washington) and rapper Yung Felony (A$AP Rocky), is an acting masterclass with the intensity of a rap battle.
Those scenes represent the movie in full flight, and they are vital and exciting, the kind of filmmaking and performances that jump off the screen. Both scenes up the stakes for everyone involved, which is lucky, because the rest of the film, while fraught with complications, is never imbued with a sense of danger. Sure, there are guns, a kidnapping and a ransom bag filled with 17.5 million dollars, but this isn’t a crime drama.
Not really.
Spike Lee and screenwriter Alan Fox use the kidnapping as a backdrop to explore fatherhood, relevancy in a changing world, ethical dilemmas, legacy and, of course, Lee’s favorite basketball team, the Knicks.
It makes for a dizzying, but uneven film.
The first hour, wallpapered with Howard Drossin’s melodramatic score, paints the gregarious David King as a man who lives up to his last name. He lives, with his wife Pam (Ilfanesh Hadera) and son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) in a NYC penthouse palace, decorated with museum quality art and mementos from King’s illustrious career. His record label, his life’s work, is about to be sold and he’s willing to risk it all to buy it back. “It’s not a risk,” he tells Pam, “it’s a rebirth.”
The business deal is thrown into jeopardy when a kidnapping plot (NO SPOILERS HERE) throws King’s life and finances into limbo. Forced to reckon with his past, present and future, King must make some very difficult choices.
The second hour, as the kidnapping plot kicks in and the financial talk fades, revs up the film’s momentum as King takes action to resolve the kidnapping and kickstart his personal and professional rebirth.
Howard Hawks once said that a great film has three great scenes and no bad ones, and while “Highest 2 Lowest” has great scenes, and the sheer force of Washington’s work ensures there are no bad ones, it feels as if the puzzle pieces don’t quite fit together. As the character work of the first half gives way to the more exciting second half, the film takes on a disjointed, idiosyncratic feel.
It never settles into a groove, it’s restless, idiosyncratic, mixing tones, themes and even film stocks. Even so, it’s compelling to watch Lee and Washington, two lions in winter, strut their stuff.
Washington hands in a bravura performance, almost Shakespearean in its theatricality. Like Washington said at the Cannes Film Festival before a screening of the film, “King Kong ain’t got s— on me.”
Lee captures that work in a movie that feels like a Spike Lee joint. It’s vibrant, in love with its characters and, even though it feels disordered, it’s a film that feels both contemporary and classic. It’s an utterly unique work that only Spike Lee could have made.
Ultimately, “Highest 2 Lowest” is a story about staying relevant for a new generation, about getting your groove back headlined to two artists who have never lost their groove.
On the surface “Baywatch,” the big screen reboot of the cheesy 1980s television show, is about beach bunnies who uncover a criminal plot that may bring with it trouble to the Baywatch lifeguards. That’s the logline, but in reality it’s actually about nostalgia, hard beach bodies and the inestimable charisma of its star (and possible presidential candidate) Dwayne Johnson.
Johnson takes over for TV lifeguard David Hasselhoff as Californian Mitch Buchannon, the gung ho leader of the elite Baywatch lifeguard squad. “Our team is the elite of the elite,” he says. “The heart and soul of the beach.” He’s a beach superstar, so beloved people curve giant sand sculptures in his honour. He keeps the waters safe but there is trouble brewing.
The Bay isn’t drawing them in like it used to and City Council has cut their funding. To stir up some publicity, and perhaps attract a few more bikini clad sunbathers, beach bigwig Captain Thorpe (Rob Huebel) hires troubled Olympian Matt Brody (Zac Efron). He’s the “Stephen Hawking of swimming” with two gold medals but he’s also a troublemaker on probation.
“That’s why we can afford him,” says Thorpe. “We got him on his community service.”
Brody butts heads with the Baywatch team—Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera), Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario), Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass) and CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach)—but especially Buchannon. The new guy may be one of the best swimmers in the world but he’s a loner and doesn’t play well with the team. “He’s reckless and insubordinate,” says Buchannon.
Despite their differences when they aren’t rescuing people from the briny depths the team is forced to come together to uncover a nefarious plot by businesswoman Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) to privatise the entire bay. “I’m not a Bond villain,” she coos. “Yet.”
Cue the wet and wild action.
“Baywatch” is one of the most popular TV shows of all time and it wasn’t because it was a searing examination of the human experience, tinted with dollops of wry humour or shrewdly pointed satire. It was because it featured SloMo teen dreams come to life, cleavage galore and cheesy action. The movie is a bigger budget version of the same. There’s no real stakes. We know things will get damp and dangerous for Mitch and Company but by the time the end credits roll everything will have sorted itself out and a sequel will be firmly in place. There’s plenty of action, gunfire and juggernauting jet skies but no jeopardy of any kind, just a generic crime story dressed up in a skimpy bathing suit.
Beyond the sea bound action is a crude sense of fun. The big screen “Baywatch” pokes gentle fun at its small screen sibling. “Why does she always looks like she’s running in slow motion?” asks new recruit Summer of CJ’s beach gait. “Do you see it too?” replies Ronnie. As the action bounces along the dumb and/or gross jokes begin to pile up threatening to crush the whole thing under their weight.
Johnson brings muscle and comic timing while Efron brings abs of steel and a willingness to do almost anything for a laugh. He doesn’t always hit the mark but you have to give him high marks for leaving his dignity at the door.
The supporting cast aren’t given much to do other than glam it up—in the party scenes—or strip down—in the beach scenes. Kelly Rohrbach it’s time for your (cleavage’s) close up. You get the idea. As the overweight and eager Ronnie, Bass is Josh Gadd Lite or maybe an echo of early Jack Black.
Depending on your point of view “Baywatch” is either a mindless summer diversion or a continuation of Hollywood’s exploitation of our collective nostalgia. Judge your interest level accordingly. Either way it fails to grab the raucous good times of “21 Jump Street,” another, more successful TV reboot.
