(***)
“Oh, what a beautiful mornin’, Oh what a beautiful day. I’ve got a beautiful feelin’,
Everything’s goin’ my way.” Well, no. Maybe everything’s not going your way my brother!
As shots of the downtown Brooklyn skyline come into view and a booming baritone voice sings the most famous song from the 1943 ground-breaking musical Oklahoma!, the words portend a wonderful day is on its way. But that’s not the case. At least not in this film’s source material, the 1963 police procedural crime thriller High and Low by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. And that movie was based on the 1959 American novel, King’s Ransom: An 87th Precinct Mystery (by Evan Hunter). Logline: A wealthy businessman thinks his son has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. But learns that his chauffeur’s son was abducted. Not his.
Fast forward 62 years. Screenwriter Alan Fox has turned the gist of that story into a 21st century urban fable. Filmmaker Spike Lee hops aboard as director/executive producer. He Spikeanizes this age-old tale and turns it into an entertaining, though uneven twist on today’s rich and famous, their woes and the generation gap.
David King (Denzel Washington), a veteran record executive is at a crossroads. His company Stackin’ Hits Records is on the verge of a merger he doesn’t want. He schemes to buy out his partners. That may mean selling all he has, lining up backers and throwing all his chips on the table. Rich man problems. The kind ambitious, narcissistic entrepreneurs love. Save your sympathy. He’s cocksure of his goals. He’ll manage. However, his more conservative wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera, Godfather of Harlem) is reluctant to give up her lush life for a dream. Now add marital strife to his stress.
If life wasn’t complicated enough; King gets a phone call. A voice on the other line claims he’s holding King’s son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) hostage. The only way the record mogul will see his offspring again is if he hands over $17.5M in ransom money. In Swiss francs, to be exact. King is alarmed: “Somebody’s got Trey!” Family and friends support him. The NYPD launches an investigation, spear headed by pushy cops (Dean Winters, LaChanze and John Douglas Thompson). Turns out the crooks got the wrong kid. Instead, they’re mistakenly holding the son (Eligah Wright) of King’s chauffeur and buddy Paul (Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction). Uh Oh.
This paradoxical allegory is ripe for exploration and the script takes that premise in several directions. King has to decide to save a life or his fortune. It’s only a moral dilemma if you’re a materialist. He is, and hence the developing quandary. Though in his defense, $17.5M is a lot of bank. Add in an ensuing criminal investigation and the plotline is fully capable of sustaining forward momentum. The kind that will keeps audiences intrigued until the culprits are captured or escape.
What’s striking in the first act of the film is the lack of a clear tone and style. What’s on view doesn’t mimic the tight, tense approach to New York crime-thrillers like director Sidney Lumet’s work on Before the Devils Knows You’re Dead. Nor the gritty rhythmic, perfectly staged patterns of TV’s Law & Order, a decades-old formula audiences love.
What viewers see and experience is the shallow grandness of King’s penthouse, his bourgie leanings, pretentious conversations and fancy record company offices. It all has the depth of a throw-away Tyler Perry movie. Not usually Lee’s brand. A bombastic score, by Howard Drossin, is more fit for a 1950s-60s soap opera than modern metropolitan Black life. It further compounds an unsettled feeling. Just as it seems direction, script and acting in the film will never gel, the footage hits a different gear.
In the second act, during a sting operation, chase scenes and fights are artfully interspersed with a Puerto Rican Day Parade and a music festival gathering in the Bronx. Legendary jazz/salsa musician Eddie Palmieri, who just passed (RIP), is the main act. He’s introduced by Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos. It’s a wondrous view of Latin culture, music and dancing, smartly juxtaposed by criminal activity. This is one of the most brilliantly filmed segments in any Spike Lee movie. On par with the iconic New York action scenes in The French Connection. The sequence is edited by Barry Alexander Brown and Allyson C. Johnson who display the precision of a surgeon. The rhythm is perfect as the dazzling cinematography (Matthew Libatique, Black Swan and PI) aptly captures the spirit of the festivities. A sea of red and white summer costumes (Francine Jamison-Tanchuck) makes the people look even more vibrant. It’s all so ingeniously crafted you wish it wouldn’t end. More than making up for the first act.
The third and final act infuses drama into the action scenes. Tough conversations add a new intensity. Arguments between a selfish man trying to be more humane and a misguided soul named Yung Felon (A$AP Rocky), who lacks a basic humanity, are explosive. The push and pull, between the older, cushy man and the younger jealous rhymer, is fiery. Yung, “You ain’t god no more, n—a. I am!” Philosophies about choosing art over business and being pulled into the mire of social media are exchanged and heady. This is where Fox’s script redeems all that came before with intelligent, enlightening thoughts about present day life and the clash between old and new mores.
Forget the over-dialogued and stagnant opening scenes and the previous awkward staging of supporting actors and extras. Now scenes are tight as a drum. The pacing is kinetic. The overambitious musical score heightens emotions. Vibrant R&B (James Brown’s “The Payback”) and rap music kick in. Fear, anger, campy hip hop joy and resolve blend together. Prison scenes, music videos clips and a Star Search audition are mixed in, too. It’s an odd mishmash that builds to a satiating ending. It all works. It clicks.
Washington and Wright are fine in their roles, though they’ve both shined brighter in other films. Can’t deny their infectious comradery: Paul pulls a gun out and David questions what it’s for. Paul, “Insurance. That’s Jake from State Farm.” A$AP Rocky as the misguided rapper milks the blood out of his character. Hurt inside, projecting negativity and doing ill-conceived things. He’s so good, so authentic a franchise could be built around him. A The Fast and Furious action film. A Creed sports movie. He’s got that “it” factor.
This ain’t your granddaddy’s crime thriller. Hard to put it in a box. It’s got weak and strong elements. But once it ends, the overall feeling that remains is that you’ve just been entertained. So much so, that you may leave the theater humming, “Everything’s going my way.”
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXYzUfGHlmA
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.