Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
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12-month trend
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2025-09 to 2026-08
A music mogul faces a moral and financial crisis when a kidnapping forces him to choose between his business empire and a stranger's life.
The story
David King, a prominent New York City music mogul and owner of Stackin' Hits Records, is on the verge of a major business deal to reclaim his company's majority ownership. To secure the necessary funds, he puts up his personal assets as collateral. However, the day of the deal, he receives an anonymous call from a kidnapper demanding a massive ransom for his son, Trey. When the kidnapper is revealed to have taken Trey's best friend, Kyle, instead, King must navigate a tense moral dilemma: whether to risk his entire business and personal fortune to save a child who is not his own.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
David King, a New York City music mogul, faces a crisis when a kidnapper demands $17.5 million for the safe return of his son, Trey. The kidnapper actually has Trey's best friend, Kyle. Despite initial hesitation to risk his business assets for someone else's child, King eventually agrees to pay the ransom. He delivers the money in a bag marked with a GPS tracker, which is then moved through a series of hand-offs during a parade. While the money is successfully delivered and Kyle is released, King's lenders demand immediate repayment of the loan, threatening to seize his assets. King eventually tracks down the kidnapper, a rapper named Yung Felon (Archie), and they engage in a physical confrontation and a rap battle. Following a gunfight, Archie is captured and later takes a plea deal. The film concludes with King forming a new, smaller label and signing a new artist, Sula, whose song 'Highest 2 Lowest' becomes a standout moment.
- First release year
- 2025
- Runtime (minutes)
- 133
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Spike Lee
- Writers
- Alan Fox · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Denzel Washington; Jeffrey Wright; Ilfenesh Hadera; ASAP Rocky; John Douglas Thompson; Dean Winters; LaChanze; Princess Nokia; Ice Spice
- Genres
- crime; thriller
- Themes
- Sacrifice; Fatherhood; Loyalty; Ambition
- Tone and mood
- Tense; Dramatic
- Premise and plot tags
- Kidnapping; Music Industry; Remake
- Source material / true-story basis
- High and Low (1963 film) and King's Ransom (1959 novel)
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but was a box-office bomb.
- Reported review scores
- Metacritic · score: 74 · scale: 100 · review count: 47
- Production trivia
- It is the fifth collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington.; ASAP Rocky played a main role and contributed two songs to the soundtrack.; The production design featured reproductions of paintings from Spike Lee's art collection.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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