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Spike Lee is genuinely a director with nothing to prove. It’s not just that he has a back catalogue of much loved films and a reputation as one of America’s greatest living filmmakers. The same is true of lots of people in the industry and even Steven Spielberg has to worry about recent box office and cultural relevance when prepping his next project. Spike Lee is somehow escapes all of that though. Partly this is because he’s never been one to follow audience expectations, always making personal projects even when working on something more mainstream, and certainly it’s down to the fact that he’s never asked for massive amounts of money from studios to realise his individual vision, at least relative to his peers. It is also due to the loyalty he has earned from regular movie goers and how, even more than someone like Tarantino who is loved among cineastes, he has consistently delivered quality, yet still varied, work. It probably helps that he doesn’t have the ego of Tarantino as well. 

Of course making something that is going straight to streaming plays into this too, as Lee has done off and on over the last few years. Even though they are now well established Netflix, Amazon and in this case Apple TV are still keen to land big name artists and often it is this they are paying for more than what they eventually produce. Apple aren’t quite as established as the others yet either so that leaves the ball in the filmmakers court to some extent. With all of this then Spike Lee is pretty much a director who is able to do what he wants.

Highest 2 Lowest doesn’t show him taking risks like in Chi-Raq and Da 5 Bloods (although I’ve kind of just argued there are no real risks for this guy) but there are still some interesting choices behind it. On the surface this is a big accessible kidnap thriller with a confident performance from its famous leading man (he got lots of accolades for Gladiator 2 but by my mind Denzel Washington is better and clearly more at home in this). Still though Lee peppers the narrative with fresh ideas and alternative approaches, because he is free to do so and he is good at understanding how far he can take something without shaking the balance. This is a movie that focuses on character, it pauses to make statements, it briefly breaks the fourth wall and in places it comes close to giving us full musical style sequences, yet it remains a gripping thriller with chase scenes and moments of excitement and tension. It celebrates the history of both R&B and international cinema (it openly honours James Brown and Aretha Franklin, and is a tribute to and a remake of Kurosawa) but it never loses sight of the contemporary story.

If I were to criticise it I might say the score is occasionally intrusive. I might also suggest that the fact that actor Dean Winters is effectively playing the same role he had in sitcom Brooklyn 99 can be similarly distracting. There is a song that is synonymous from Oklahoma that has maybe has to work a little too hard when placed over shots of New York too, and I’m afraid the female characters are fairly marginalised. In the end though I respect all of the decisions Spike Lee is making here, even if a few challenge me, and as I’ve been saying all the way through; he doesn’t need an inch of my or anyone else’s validation. Highest 2 Lowest has an interesting energy, it won’t satisfy everyone and it is very far from being his best film of even the last five years. 

It’s cool though, and what’s good enough for Spike Lee is good enough.