‘Highest 2 Lowest’ and a demand for theatrical exhibition

As one of our best living filmmakers, Spike Lee movies belong on the big screen.

Technically, Lee’s latest, “Highest 2 Lowest” screened in some theaters for two weeks prior to its debut on the Apple TV+ streaming service. It didn’t, however, have the expansive reach of Apple’s previous release, the Brad Pitt racing flick “F1,” which became a box office success this past summer.

One might make the argument that a racing movie like “F1” garners a broader potential audience compared to Lee’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 noir, “High and Low.” Another fair point: Lee’s remake of “Oldboy” might be the biggest stinker of the director’s career.

I offer two counterpoints:

1. “Highest 2 Lowest” stars the most consistently bankable movie star of the past several decades: Denzel Washington. His movies almost always make a profit, more so than any Tom, Chris, Leo or Brad. People go see Denzel movies in the theater.

2. A filmmaker as accomplished as Lee deserves a theatrical exhibition as much as Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg. His dynamic and underrated 2020 film, “Da 5 Bloods,” streamed exclusively on Netflix (and would have anyway even without a global pandemic).

With only a two-week limited theatrical run for “Highest 2 Lowest,” Apple essentially labeled it as a streaming film. Right or wrong, in 2025, being a streaming film is coded as being something that didn’t deserve a theatrical release. Netflix can disagree all it wants about the label, but even they know they needed to send “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” and “K-Pop Demon Hunters” into theaters so they could make some easy, easy, easy money.

Admittedly, I can understand Apple’s reluctance to spend millions on marketing for a theatrical push on “Highest 2 Lowest.” The film opens somewhat awkwardly as Lee attempts to modernize and conceptualize the plot and themes of the original Kurosawa film into something that suits Lee’s sensibilities and thematic ideas.

The new film stars Washington as a legendary music producer who loses grip of his business empire while wrestling with a seemingly unwinnable moral dilemma. A kidnapping is involved, as well as an elaborate and tense ransom exchange involving train cars, mopeds, a parade and some loudmouth New York Yankees fans (Side note: this author hates the Yankees).

The second half of “Highest 2 Lowest” is some of the most thrilling work in Lee’s career, propelled by three towering performances: Washington, Jeffrey Wright and musician ASAP Rocky. It seems to be the thing to say with every Denzel performance, but the actor deserves to be in the Oscar conversation.

“Highest 2 Lowest” is a fantastic addition to Apple’s sparse original movie offerings. Really, it’s one of their best alongside Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (a movie given a wide theatrical release) and the Washington-starring “Tragedy of Macbeth.”

I personally love having good movies available at home, but I also love to experience movies on the big screen that were made with the intention of experiencing them on the big screen. When local theaters provide 12, 14, 20 screens, they should give us the option to see good movies on a huge screen. It’s the reason why a reissue of the 50-year-old “Jaws” can make solid money in theaters. Same goes for “Hamilton,” which made $10 million in theaters despite being easily available on Disney+ for the past five years. Good movies get seen in theaters (if not quite as much as something like “The Conjuring: Last Rites”).

The ransom exchange in “Highest 2 Lowest” would have been spectacular on the big screen. Heck, even the movie’s awkward musical score probably plays better in the theater. Really though, it comes down to the simple fact that Denzel Washington and Spike Lee are big screen players. Period.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at [email protected].

    This image released by A24 shows Denzel Washington in a scene from "Highest 2 Lowest."
  

    This image released by A24 shows A$AP Rocky in a scene from "Highest 2 Lowest."