Spike Lee ’s Highest 2 Lowest takes some time to find its groove. But once it does, when the film leaves the high rises and puts its feet on the New York pavement, it really sings.

A reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low , Lee brings the story to a modern-day New York where a music mogul, played by Denzel Washington , is faced with a moral dilemma: Save a kidnapped kid or his flagging empire. Both will cost nearly everything he has.

We toss around the term “auteur” pretty casually these days. It’s become almost a shorthand for any filmmaker with an ounce of style. But Highest 2 Lowest is a film that has Lee’s DNA in every frame — a symphonic blend of his influences and passions: cinema, New York City, sports, Black stories, great needle drops and, of

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