Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” had its world premiere out of competition at Cannes, with just a single press screening held in the cramped Salle Agnès Varda theater. Unfortunately, I missed it—tickets were gone—and won’t be catching it until next week.
Suffice it to say, Lee’s latest—running 132 minutes—has released a full-length trailer. The film will have a brief two-week theatrical run starting August 22, before heading to Apple TV+ on September 5.
Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky lead the cast in what’s being described as a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 masterpiece “High and Low.” The screenplay is credited to Lee and Alan Fox. Reviews out of Cannes were positive — 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 76 on Metacritic.
While Kurosawa’s original centered on a Japanese shoe executive, Lee’s update shifts the setting to New York City, with Washington playing a powerful record executive who finds himself targeted by extortionists after his chauffeur’s son is mistakenly kidnapped.
“Highest 2 Lowest” also marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington — and their first in over two decades, following “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X,” “He Got Game,” and “Inside Man.”
Lee's most recent film, the Netflix-produced “Da 5 Bloods,” was released five years ago. Before that, he directed “BlacKkKlansman,” widely regarded as a critical and commercial comeback. The film earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Director and won him his first Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
So there's a script. That's something. It looks as though “The Movie Critic” really is dead and buried, and that this is a brand-new project, and title, but the premise is unknown.