Review: Highest 2 Lowest **

Image: Picturehouse

Confused and disappointed in the lack of a theatrical release for this film, I defiantly travelled to my local picturehouse for an exclusive preview in support of a film by a established director starring a respected actor. How dare they only release this on streaming? How dare they start marketing less than a month before its release? A24 has a notorious track record when it comes to distributing and marketing its films directed by/starring non white people (black people especially) - that's right, I noticed this, studio heads! - but unfortunately, Highest 2 Lowest has earned its place in streaming purgatory.

First of all, this was never going to be better than or as good as High and Low. I haven't seen his version of Oldboy (I refuse), but I've partially seen his remake of Ganja & Hess (it wasn't good), so the positive reviews made me go in with cautious optimism despite his track record filling me with hesitation. As willing as I was to like what I was about to see, what I got was a very messy, artistically indecisive film that has only glimmers of inventiveness.

I've always had conflicted feelings towards Spike Lee. I've seen enough of his films to know that he has a lot to express, and that sometimes his expressions are misplaced. This is a prime example. There are some... interesting directorial and baffling editing decisions, many of which are frankly quite embarrassing. The confusingly overbearing score eliminates any sense of urgency - especially in the first half of the film - and the script is very clunky and at times verbose, with a few masturbatory and ham fisted exchanges and visuals (Kamala Harris poster in the teenage son's room? "What would you do James [Brown]? What would you do, Stevie [Wonder]? What would you do, Jimi [Hendrix]? What would you do Aretha [Franklin]?" ?????). They only take you further out of the film and remind you that despite his ability to mature as a filmmaker (Blackkklansman), he still has some development to go through in the late stage of his career.

I've also seen enough of Spike Lee's films - and instagram posts - to know that he has a warped and colorist view of black women. As a lighter skinned black woman who benefits from the colorism bullshit, it's more than a little uncomfortable to see that whenever there's a "visible" black woman in his films they're either light skinned or mixed; though there was never much of a female presence in High and Low, his view of black women seeps through in this one. The characterless, light skinned, straight haired trophy wife gives absolutely nothing, and every other "black" woman apart from the one police officer are the palest mixed women you could possibly find. The pseudo asap rocky (who can't act btw) music video with women twerking into the camera sealed the deal for me.

I admit I somewhat liked the confrontation scene via the studio booth as a spiritual successor to the og prison ending, but it was once again let down by the horribly written script.

This was a very frustrating watch.