Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest: Thomas Underground

Hark! It's an 87th Precinct podcast.

Well, it's been a while (42 months or so, as of release of this) so we thought it high (not low) time we got back together. Luckily Spike Lee thought to adapt Kurosawa's High and Low into his 2025 film Highest 2 Lowest and so how could we resist this opportunity?

Remember, we're Hark87Podcast on most social things, but particularly Bluesky now. Please do rate, review and share the episodes. If you'd like to email us, please use [e-mail] to do so and check out our blog pages for previous episodes, scores and so forth.

Why not listen to Paul's song High To Low (by Good Grief) on Bandcamp to accompany this episode?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Right, where were we? Theme music.

(00:41):
Hark, it's the 87th Precinct podcast.
This is, as far as we know, still the only podcast in the
world dedicated to Ed Mcbain's Seminole series of police
procedural novels, which began in 1956 with Cop Hater and ended
in 2005 with Fiddlers. There were 55 books in the
series, and today's episode looks at, well, none of them.

(01:03):
But I suppose you could say it kind of looks back to book #10
in the series, which was 1959's King's Ransom.
But it looks at it through the lens of the film High and low.
But it looks at that film through the lens of 2025's
highest to lowest, which is Spike Lee's updated version of
Kurosawa's movie. But before we get to that, I

(01:26):
suppose I should introduce the characters sat around the old
hark table. We have, of course, got Mr
Stephen Royston. Hello.
And Mr Morgan Brown. How do you do?
Well, yes, it's nice to see you again.
I've not. Seen you for years, yeah. 3 1/2
years it's been not seen or spoken to each other.
Since. Yes, our last episode, May 2022.

(01:51):
Well. My God, how time flies.
Yeah, it does. Really.
It's a bit weird, isn't it? Yeah, flip me neck.
Sorry, everyone. We did mean to come back quite
soon after we'd finished the last one.
Not only did the very last episode we put out cut off
before we'd actually recording, before we'd finished talking,
but we did say we'd come back and talk about things and do a

(02:12):
catch up and round up and then we'd say it's 3 1/2 years later.
Well, better later than never. Yeah, that's it.
We're doing it. So it's a Christmas treat for
everyone. I mean, it's it's a bit weird.
It's not like there's much to sort of catch up on, really.
I mean, the only thing I thoughtwe could talk about is if
there's been any crime reading fun that you've had in the past
few years. Really.

(02:32):
I mean, I was thinking back looking at my little list of
books because I've had to start keeping a list of of books and
films that I watch and stuff like that because I am terrible
for remembering and also becauseI keep reading series of things
and and needing to know what's in those series.
Crime wise, the thing I've enjoyed most in the past couple
of years was Seishi Yokamiso's books.

(02:53):
The Japanese writer wrote the Kasuki Kindaichi detective
novels. So they're the ones that he
started writing them I think in the 40s and it was right through
to just before he died, I think in, in 1980 or something like
that. I think you had me reading one
of those, did you not? I think.
Yeah, I think I did like death on Dockman Island or something
like that or one of. Those It was a locked room

(03:13):
mystery, the name of which escapes me.
The Zodiac murders, was it called?
No, it wasn't called the Zodiac Murders.
But but he's a funny one becausehe's essentially, he's like the
Japanese Sherlock Holmes. You know, he's this independent
detective who does work with, you know, work with the police
and has sold so many books in Japan and had so many films and

(03:38):
TV series and plays and all thatstuff, man.
And it's just there's like something like 70 odd books in
the series, of which there's been about 5 published in
English, and only in this in thepast 10 years, which is is nuts
really. Yeah, it's crazy, things like
that. It's like I I've got the years
ago, got the first two Phantomous books in translation

(03:59):
and got really excited about those.
And then those are the only two that have been translated into
English ever, even though there are, I don't even know how many
there are in French, but very many.
Yeah, I think there's still onlythose two translated even now.
That's nuts, really. Crazy.
Yeah, yeah, fabulous books though.
I mean, there is, yes, a few locked room type mysteries,

(04:21):
other types of and lots of tyingup a sort of the issues that are
at play in Japan in the 20th century and mid 20th century
particularly, but very, very interesting.
It just it always strikes me as amazing when there's a character
like that that is so hugely wellknown and well selling that you
just know nothing about. And yeah, it's great.

(04:42):
So they there was Pushkin Vertigo.
I think it's a publisher that that's done a bunch of those.
That's yes, that's, I think it struck me the most, but I was
going through a bit of a phase of reading John D MacDonald's
stuff again, like mid 60s, mid to late 60s Travis McGee novels
recently. I was feeling a bit miserable
and sorry for myself and I just wanted some comfort reading.

(05:05):
So I did three of those in a rowI think.
Well, very satisfying. Yeah, yeah, they are even if
there's it's weird when you read1 where he suddenly this very
ocean going that's not quite right Delta going.
Is that more of that correct? You know marine character is
suddenly in the desert. It's always you know, when they
pick up a place, a character that you know from one setting

(05:27):
into something. Yeah, that can be a bit odd.
But yeah, I enjoyed them a lot, Really so.
Cool. What about you Morgan?
Had anything on the go crime wise?
Not that much crime wise, I'm I'm still probably on a bit more
of a science fiction kick, but Ihave.
I did find a little cache of vintage Margaret Miller's in a

(05:50):
little shop in Southport a whileago and I've been gradually
working my way through those. I do love a, a, a good Margaret
Miller. I think it's, it's always a bit
frustrating to me that she's notquite as well known as I think
she should because really quite a singular writer, just a bit of
a different approach to anyone else of that kind of generation

(06:11):
with like just really interesting characters, like
psychologically really interesting.
I've read a, I've read a couple of Margaret Miller's.
I've got a couple more to read yet.
Yes, I would like to read more of.
That, Yeah, specialises in thesesort of, Yeah.
Psychologically damaged but fascinating individuals, Yeah.

(06:32):
Always, always pretty gripping, I think, yeah.
Cool, Stevo. Well, yeah, I've, yeah, I've
must have done a fair few Margaret Miller's in the last
few years as well. Always a collection of fairly
ordinary looking people at the beginning of the book, and then
as the books go on you realise they're all completely crackers
in their own little ways. And yeah, but yeah, they're not

(06:55):
quite. Yeah, they're not very easy to
get hold of those, really. Now that there were some sort of
sort of omnibus editions of thema few years ago, I think they
were, I think they've. With the MMM on the the spine.
But yeah, they're quite tricky together I.
Think they've gone out of print again now it's it's because it
was a bit of a after there were a couple of TV applications of

(07:18):
Shirley Jackson. She's had a bit of a renaissance
with new kind of fancy additions.
I always think Margaret Miller, although technically I guess
you'd say Shirley Jackson's morein the horror vein and Margaret
Miller's more crime. I think they've got an awful lot
in common as writers. I think anyone who, who enjoys,
you know, the Haunting of of Hill House or the Birds Nest or
any of those would definitely really enjoy Margaret Miller's

(07:39):
stuff too, because it's really pretty similar.
Yeah, I've been. Well, yeah, chalking off a few
more May greys as well, but yeah, there's just an absolute
vast number of those to get through so.
Well, that's a good example. Like with those Yochamizo
novels, May Grey is that that equivalent figure in France, But

(07:59):
that's he's known worldwide. Yeah, yeah.
You know, whereas the Japanese stuff just hasn't, hasn't come
across as much. But I did have to Google my
Zodiac murders which is the onlyother Japanese.
OK. Crime fiction I've ever read but
by Sozi Shimada. Right, don't know, but I.
Remember that being an absolutely fantastic book that I

(08:20):
randomly came across somewhere, and yes, of which I seem to
remember, the plot is extremely bonkers as well.
Yeah, that would be a couple of years ago.
So don't to ask me any questionsabout what happens.
Because I'm not sure I remember I read one from the 80s by Ayat

(08:40):
Ayat Suji called The Decagon House Murders, which is very
Agatha Christie. And in fact, I was reading this
book and you got to the end of it.
I thought this is unfilmable. This book is unfilmable because
the way it's the stories told and the reveal at the end, you
can't, there's no way to do thatvisually.

(09:01):
And then so I did what I very often do is I went and looked up
some stuff about the book and the first thing I read was was
made into a series in 2024. How you know?
But. Intriguing, you know.
Adaptations of books are a wholething unto themselves, as we
shall see. Well, the the the one of the
series that you got me to read would be unfilmable because

(09:23):
that's all about yeah, locked room.
But then a a case of mistaken identity and somebody who
shouldn't be alive is and yeah, yeah, be a bit of a challenge to
film I think. But you always find a way
though, I suppose. The Hong Jin murders, that's the
first one. That's the Yukamiso one, Yeah,

(09:45):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
There we go. There's a little bit of a catch
up for for everyone there. We've all I've was reading quite
a lot of sci-fi as well recentlyand I always go through these
phases of Philip Jose Farmer's River World Series because I
finally found the next three books and I've been beasting
through that. Why does why do so many science

(10:06):
fiction writers require the scenarios they put the
characters in to have them nude So just.
I don't know, I've never read any Philip Pose Farmer, but I
have heard that about him specifically.
Yeah, on his blurb, it's always about how he introduced sex into
science, science fiction. But so every, every human being

(10:26):
that's ever died is resurrected on the banks of this this
mysteriously resurrected on the banks of the river world along
the, you know, along the banks of this river.
And it's and they don't know where, but they are for some
reason all. Nude, you know when they're.
When they're resurrected, yeah, they're all nude and they're all
25. Fantastic.
So. Well, there you go anyway. 60
times in the future. Yeah, that's it.

(10:49):
Yeah, on the subject of Ed McBain, anyway, I would love to
update everyone on what's happened in the world of Ed
McBain in the last 3 1/2 years. Well.
Well, yeah. And if anyone can do it, I can
do it. Yes.
But in all honesty, a if there was any news, I would have
mentioned it already on social media sites such as Facebook and

(11:09):
Instagram and blue sky where youcan find us on there very easy
to find us Hark 87 podcast, especially blue sky.
Let's get more going on there. That's good.
But yeah, the the B point is there just hasn't been any.
That's it. And I did check again today
thinking, have I missed anythinglike even like anniversaries or
discussions? And like when last year with

(11:32):
Blackboard Jungle and this year for the film, I did a bit of,
you know, media, but there wasn't anything in the press
about it. There's been no more discussion
about an 87 precinct TV series. I'm sure someone must have the
right still, but nothing, absolutely nothing.
The only thing I've noticed is today, edmcbain.com is still up
and that's been around for a very long time.

(11:53):
But the front page of that has changed slightly.
But all it's changed to is basically go on to Amazon.
It's to say go to Amazon and buythese books and it and claiming
that you can buy all quote 52 ofthe novels on Amazon now.
And it's like, well, you can't. You still can't.
I mean, you can buy all 55 in some form or another, but Amazon

(12:15):
do not owe, you know, Thomas andThomas and Mercer do not own the
rights to all of them still. And in fact, I think there's
even fewer than last time I checked because for some reason
there used to be an e-book available for The Last Dance
that's now not available anywhere.
I can't find any publication details for that anywhere.
So the number of available like if you want to buy them

(12:36):
digitally is is dropped so. You mentioned here 20 years
though since the last book you. Know.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I suppose it.
I should have checked the publication date really but.
Yeah, you know, it starts to become a distance and a lot of
his colleagues and people who would have an interest in
promoting or, you know, people who remember them become less

(12:59):
and less, I suppose. Yeah, because whenever you do
see mention, lots of people mention, like I was talking to
you, Steve, about Shane Black, the director who's done the new
Parker adaptation. Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and I was listening to himtalk on a podcast recently on
the Scott hasn't seen podcast off Comedy Bang Bang World, and

(13:19):
he mentioned Ed McBain a couple of times.
So there are people who are really, you know.
And how old do you reckon? Kind of.
Well, what of what generation? Well, you know, his lethal
weapons, his thing, isn't it? So yeah, yeah, I think that's
right anyway. But yeah, I'm just to see if I
can find the publication date ofthe last 8-7.
Well, it would be precinct an amazing coincidence. 13th of

(13:41):
September 2005. So we are now 20 years and, and
20 and a quarter years on from the last 87th Precinct book.
And there's, there's nothing else.
Yeah, nothing's come out. So you just don't know who's got
the rights and what they're allowed to do.
And the thing I've mentioned a couple of times before, I think
is like recently, and again recently I've been trying to

(14:04):
make sure I've got as many of the short stories as I can out
of the old sort of pulps magazines.
So I've found I've definitely got all the published sci-fi
short stories and they would do that.
You know, no one expects it to be Ed McBain.
They expect it to be the writings of someone who becomes
Ed McBain. But you could do that easily.

(14:24):
2020 odd little short stories, 3004 thousand words short
stories in a book, republish them, then republish the sci-fi.
You know that there's so many ways you could handle that.
All the stuff that there are tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of
short stories that haven't been published anywhere else that are
crime and and adventure, things like that.
It really needs looking into. So someone let me, you'll get.

(14:48):
All the man to do it. Absolutely.
OK, Well. What are the are the rights to
all this held with numerous different?
Presumably, though. Needs which just make it
insurmountable to achieve. Or you'd have thought so because
I mean, copyright obviously in things lasts a very long time,
but you also don't know where that copyright's been allocated.
If he, if he was writing, you know, there was times in the

(15:10):
early 50s where he had to have, he'd have four stories in man
manhunt to different names, but he'd also have stories in a
sci-fi magazine, a Western magazine, a sports magazine
even, which are really hard to find.
I can't find any of the sports ones at all.
So who owns them? Is it the publishers or did he
then later reclaim them back? Or what type of contracts did
they have there? Could be organisations that have

(15:32):
the rights to these things as part of their portfolios of
acquiring things and they just don't even know about.
Yeah, they just tucked away somewhere.
Yeah, I know he did make a big effort because the the Huey
Corporation was him, you know, and a lot of the stuff that you
see published later is copyrightthat even if it's republishings
of earlier things. So sometimes you'll find a short
story in like a collected edition of different authors

(15:54):
doing things like a sci-fi 1. And I don't I need to check the
the copyright on that, which might suggest something.
But anyway, that's neither here nor there at the moment.
But yeah. So there you go.
Sorry, no news. Until this film, maybe you know.
Well, I mean this. Is the most.
Significant thing. That's certainly where his names
cropped up most recently in, in like articles and things like

(16:15):
that because people are saying, you know, which is based on
Kurosaba, which it's in turn is based on dot dot dot.
But we'll come to that in a second.
I got in front of me our final rankings for the series.
I'm not suggesting we do our ourrecap and you know.
You don't expect me to? Maybe because of three hours of
us trying to guess the order? Until we get it right.

(16:37):
Until you 2 get it right and I sort of it's smugly with a list
in front of me. I reckon King's well taking
King's ransom then I suspect that would be fairly.
I reckon that would be top 6. OK, Yeah.
If I had to guess. Yeah.
Can you remember any of what wasour number one in the end?
What about the Dutch ghosts? Let's see how far down I have to

(16:59):
scroll to find that. One that bottom, well, there was
quite a few contenders for that.Was third from bottom Ghosts was
third from bottom all. Right, OK.
I feel I mean kings ransom must be near near the top.
Ice was ice was always very, very good.
Wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, cop hater, surely.
Yeah. Up there as well.

(17:21):
Well, I'll tell you what the thetop, I'll talk about top.
Three top 3 was. I'll give you the top ten, top
10. So I've.
Alan Freeman voice. No, I can't, but you can put the
anyway. You got the publish publishing
year. I'd be interested to know how

(17:42):
the how the different eras and whatnot.
Well, not written down, but we can.
We know it ran more or less, we know it randomly, we know it
more or less. So number one was tricks.
Oh God, yeah. 80s that maybe? Yeah, yeah.
Early, earliest 80s maybe. Yeah.
It's it's yeah. Because I'd forgotten how good

(18:03):
that was until we until we reread it and it was like, Oh
yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, Tricks was booked #40 in
1987. Oh.
It's later than I thought, yeah.Yeah, that's terrific.
That's probably flanked by some reasonably well soon after some
more dodgy editions I would havethought.
Yeah, our second highest rated book was ICE.
All right, OK. Then King's ransom.

(18:27):
Well, you will. I guess what?
I guess. Good.
Yeah. But yeah, it was.
Tricks are well, I would have never I would be.
AI think we just responded very.It was one that I don't know
that I would necessarily leap togo back to, although I did
reread it again recently. It's kind of made me want to.
Yeah, reread that now. Because I think it was one that
you get a very visceral responseto.
It's quite a sort of, you know, action-packed thing.

(18:48):
Tricks Ice Kings Ransom Sadie when she died.
Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, which is excellent.
That was one we always held up as being a sort of perfect
example. Yeah, that's good.
Doll. Yeah, OK, great.
Then Cop hater, Where are we now?
123-4566 The Heckler. So very early on.
Oh yeah, Kiss. About which I can remember

(19:10):
almost nothing, but we put it inour top 10 Fat Ollie's book.
Oh yeah, yeah. And Fiddler's.
So the very, the very last one was our number 10, yeah.
Fat Ollie's book's a good later,Yeah to 1 as well, isn't it?
Yeah, definitely. Oh, it's interesting.
So and bottom, bottom 5 bottom. 5 was right in towards the very

(19:34):
bottom. We'll go, we'll go towards the
bottom. We got 80 million eyes.
Worse than that was the Last Dance, which is all right.
You can't get an e-book of it. Worse than that was ghosts.
Dutch Ghosts. Dutch ghosts.
Who wants to read about them? Yeah.
Then we discovered that worse than that was our namesake.
Hark. And can we remember what was in

(19:57):
last place out of all of the books?
What about the one with the music festival That that was
always a. Bit Bandersnatch.
It's the frumious Bandersnatch. What happens in that?
That's to do with the music industry.
Right. Well.
Yeah. If there's one thing, he always
had a bit of a blind spot for it.

(20:17):
Was. Yeah.
It's something about older people trying to engage with the
youthful side of the music industry that can sometimes ring
a bit false. Oh.
It was a it was a song, wasn't it?
Yes. It was a bit sort of Brittany
Christina Aguilera. Yeah, yeah.
It's all coming back. That's.
A song based on the Premier's Band of Snatch?

(20:38):
Yeah, it's excruciating. The Jabberwocky, isn't it?
Yeah. Yes, that's the one.
Yeah, yeah. 50 million. That's the one with the murder
on the television. 80 million eyes.
Yeah, yeah, 80. Million eyes.
Yeah, which I, I have sort of a guilty pleasure of, I can reread
that. But it's it's definitely not
good when you pay pay any attention.
I mean, I I enjoy, I enjoyed allof them, but like, but there's a

(21:02):
reason why the ones down at the bottom are at the bottom.
Yeah, especially Bandersnatch. But yes, you make a good point,
Morgan, about people trying to engage with the music industry
from outside of it all, from being a certain age, something
we may come back to in our following discussion.
It could happen. Yeah, I, I do want to give
special mention though, to some of the special episodes I did

(21:25):
with guests and things like that.
Because what we will have to do is we will have to rank highest
to lowest and we'll have to, we have to keep our brains alive
for the what are units going to be?
Because, you know, we normally awarded police Shields, didn't
we, out of 100. So when like I did the spin
offs, the Star Trek assignment Earth spin off that was marked

(21:46):
in Starfleet communicators high and low, which we did and
obviously rated very, very highly.
We didn't just mark that in police badges.
We were being quite kind there. The young savages.
We watched that film it we we marked that out of switchblades
line of duty, which we watched, which was the TV episode that
McBain wrote. For some reason we we awarded

(22:08):
that points in the form of crochet beads and I cannot for
the life of me remember why. It'll be an extremely good
reason for that. Yeah, must have cropped up.
But yeah, and the TV serial TV episode written by SA Lombino,
Appointment on Mars, that I did with that one with a guest, our
friend Adam Paxman, was graded out of carpet weave density.

(22:33):
So we need to come up with something appropriate for
highest to lowest, which is a film we have just.
Watched I'll I'll have a think. In fact, it's a film that Morgan
has now watched. Twice, that's true.
Can't believe you've devoted 4 1/2 hours of your life to?
Yeah. Did you get the cinema the first
time? No, I think we completely missed

(22:54):
the cinematic run. But it was just spotted it and
on on Apple TV. So I was like, oh, started
watching it and then realised, oh God, it's the adaptation of
yeah, yeah. It only had a very, very limited
theatrical run, I believe because.
So technically it was a box office bomb, except that it was
only limited to several theatresonly for a very short time.

(23:16):
And actually it made $1.5 million or something which given
the scenario it was put out in. Yeah, I think the more films are
released like that, the more they're going to have to
reevaluate what constitutes a bomb.
Aren't they? Yeah.
Netflix ends up taking over Warner Brothers.
I'm not sure what's happening with that.
Yeah, I've got a cinema membership and it's released

(23:38):
totally passed me by. Yeah, it may not even have got
into the cinemas around us. No, possibly.
It may have just been a few cinemas in America.
They're doing so. And I think there is this.
Partly they do that, don't they,to get it to qualify for awards
and things like that. But it is essentially an Apple
film, and it's out on Apple TV, and that's where we watched it.
But it's Spike Lee with his OFT collaborator Denzel Washington

(24:03):
in the lead role. And the thing that's important
to us, it's called Highest to Lowest because it's based on
High and Low by Akira Kurosawa, which we know is a phenomenal
film regardless of the McBain connection, but it is also the
best adaptation of any McBain there's been.
So here's the thing to get us going with this, really.

(24:26):
Are we 2 steps removed from likethe McBain novel now?
Because it's an adaptation of anadaptation, and I say that given
that the film that we've just watched is setting in New York
again and acknowledges King's ransom in the credits at the
start, which I was shocked. By yeah, I was surprised when
that first came up as well, because it it, it says it gives
it equal billing to. In fact, it says that.

(24:46):
Before it, says Kurosawa. No, Maybe there's an element of
full circle and I don't know, getting closer to the, Yeah, the
source, but yeah. In some respects.
Yeah, in some respects and not in others, because, yeah, you
wouldn't go back to that source material and make it just about
some rich guy. It's has to be some rich guy in

(25:07):
a very significant and powerful and obvious position, which is
what this film's all about. It does running a shoe, what was
shoe factory use? Is that that not powerful enough
anymore? I don't know so.
The general arc of the plot. I can't quite remember how
similar it was to high and low. Maybe you could explain?

(25:29):
As and I haven't watched in ageseven though I have got sitting
waiting for me the the new BFI Blu-ray release of High and Low
which seems. To be broadly similar, I.
Think so, essentially. Strain and all.
Yeah, totally. So we have the basic plot from
high and low as, as I suspect everyone listening to this knows
anyway, is that the son of a rich person is kidnapped.

(25:52):
Only it turns out not to be his son, but the son of his
chauffeur, who's more of a sort of general factotum in this one,
isn't he? Rather than even though he does
drive the car, drives that disgusting Rolls Royce.
I hate that car so. Ugly, ugly car.
But yeah, And then what happens is once the kidnapper discovers
a mistake, they don't care anyway.

(26:13):
So it's about the moral quandaryof the lead character.
Who is Douglas King in the book,King of Gondo in the Kurosawa
film, and David King in this film?
He has to struggle with whether he's going to pay the money.
Now it's not his son that's beenkidnapped.
He eventually agrees to do so. Then it's about the process of
how do they get the money to thekidnapper and then how do they

(26:37):
get the money back and the boy back and all that sort of stuff.
So it does follow the general beats of it, although in this
one, and you have to remember Denzel Washington has made three
films of the equaliser. You do get a feeling you felt a
little bit like he wanted to be the equaliser again at the end
of this. Like, they get the police out of
the way and then he's off a bit,you know, pulling a gun.

(27:01):
Yeah, it certainly does for the last.
Yeah, half hour running around at how old he is these days.
But yeah, he did a lot of running around towards the end,
didn't he? Certainly did.
Yeah, some. There was some hilariously slow
chasing in this film. Well yeah, I suppose a totally
stoned guy being chased after bya 70 year old man kind of chase.

(27:21):
I don't think either of them were.
Yeah, and the bit where one of the policemen was chased earlier
in the film was was chasing the guy down the steps and it was
like neither of them had ever seen a step.
Before, yeah, I guess the one guy had taken a bump off the the
the scooter. The policeman I guess was just
really out of condition. So they're not quite evenly
matched. There's like one really injured
guy and one just lazy policeman.He was.

(27:44):
He was too busy swearing at everyone.
Wasn't he? Yeah.
Just being borderline extremely racist to everyone who stepped
in in front of him, Yeah. Yeah, so that was the policeman
played by, I think, Dean Winters, who I mainly know as
Liz, one of Liz Lemon's terribleseveral boyfriends from 30 Rock.
And as we were saying, he alwaysseems to play grotty little
weirdos. Yeah, well, yeah, well cast in

(28:08):
this. Was he our Roger Havilland for
the UK? Let's make that.
He is the only one who seems to me to be any kind of equivalent
of a of a, an 87 precinct cop. Really.
The rest of them were just, yeah, they weren't really
characters, were they? At all.
No, I don't think so. I mean, cuz yeah, even the sort

(28:29):
of the leading. Nondescript cop #1.
Did we even know any of their names?
Cuz I, I was interested in whether they were just gonna
maybe just give them yeah, a little bit of a nod to hello,
I'm Detective Steve Carell or something.
And then that be literally the extent of the.
No, we had connection. We had Detective Earl Bridges.

(28:50):
There was a lot of bridges in the film as well.
I wonder if they just went bridges.
Earl Bridges. Yeah, Dean Winters was Detective
Higgins and Le Chan's as Detective Belle, so.
Thomas Underground. Detective train, Yeah.

(29:10):
Barry Locomotive. Two nice cops, one nasty cop.
Yeah, that was. Although they were, they did a
lot of victimisation of some people, they just didn't like
some people and they were. There was a, there was
definitely a, there was a bit ofa class divide, wasn't there,
with how they treated people, which wasn't done terribly
subtly, but yeah, it was, it wasthere, definitely.
If you yeah, if you were in a beanie, got shouted at.

(29:32):
That's it. And if you well, they they also
gone to the fact that that that the chauffeur had a criminal
record very early on and that very much informed how he was
treated, didn't they, I think. Absolutely.
Yeah. So there was, yeah.
I mean, there's always without going into the the, you know,
the deep psychological meaning high to low, highest to lowest,
you know, they, it's interpretedseveral ways in every in, you

(29:55):
know, in the Kurosawa and in this some more effective than
others. Really.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you a really silly link, of
course, via Denzel Washington toEd McBain, which is of course,
as I have mentioned, Denzel Washington played the equaliser
in the big screen adaptations ofthe equaliser.
Right. In the TV series of The

(30:16):
Equaliser with Edward Woodward, he often interacted with a
character in the company called Control, played by Robert
Lansing, who was television's Steve Carella in the 60s.
Fantastic. A thing that Denzel Washington
will know nothing about. So there you go.

(30:36):
Yeah. Well, there you go.
It's all connected. It's fair for him to play that
role, wasn't? He now I've got to be honest, I
don't think I've seen many SpikeLee films, if any, all the way
through. Which seems a bit odd really,
because I'd have thought I'd have seen something like Do the
Right Thing or something like that.

(30:57):
Do love do the right thing? But have you seen many?
It's likely. Not really.
I've seen that. I've seen Jungle Fever years
ago, sort of Black Klansman whenthat came out and.
Possibly one or two others. But Do the Right Thing is the
only one that really made that much of an impression on me.
Black Klansman was pretty good too.
Black Klansman I've seen. Yeah, that was very good, I

(31:19):
thought. Yeah, it's I was looking down
the list of things he's done when I was sort of so the ones
he's done with Denzel Washingtonis MO better Blues, Malcolm X,
he got game inside man and highest to lowest.
So it wasn't as many as I thought.
They seemed to be implying that he'd been in like everything
with him, but there was 5. But some of the other cast I

(31:39):
think have worked despite me a fair bit.
But yeah, looking down, down thelist here, it's what have we got
as well. Clockers I'm sure I've seen that
as well. Malcolm X Definitely seen that
I've. Not seen that we could.
Have seen this one which was a we could have we could have
watched this one which. Oh yes, the yes, that was
Bamboozled, a film called Bamboozled, yes, which is about

(32:02):
I think is about black minstrels, minstrelsy being done
by black people. But I don't know, don't hold me
to that. I think that's what it's about,
minstrelsy. I think, yeah.
Oh, I'm sure. From a Spike Lee perspective.
Yeah, totally. I mean, so obviously, if you're
getting a Spike Lee film, you were going to get something
that's dealing probably with cultural situations about black

(32:24):
people, and this is what we get here.
But it's tied into the music industry and particularly then
the sort of rap particularly, but also pop.
It's a bit hard to tell really. I mean.
You seem to move the goal posts on.
Exactly. Yeah, fellas, career a little
bit. So instead of having a shoe

(32:44):
salesman, a rich shoe. Magnate.
Gone are the days. Rich shoe magnate.
We've got the head of a very, orat least at one point, very,
very, very successful record company that is.
So let me get this right becauseI think this does tally exactly
with King's ransom and high to low.

(33:08):
It's not a successful now. So the board wants to sell to
another company called Stray Dog, which is a reference to
Kurosawa, if I'm not much mistaken, and I rarely am.
But David King wants to buy the business out himself, to make it
more authentic, to get it back to his roots, because he has

(33:30):
pride in the product, as Kingo Gondo had.
He's, he's sold some shares earlier, hasn't he?
And he's regretted it. And now he wants to, to buy
everyone, everyone else's sharesback so he can, yeah, reconnect
with the, the music and yeah, yeah.
And all that. But the board aren't necessarily
sure about it. But he's determined at this
point that he's going to liquidate all his assets, such

(33:53):
as their big high penthouse, thehigh point in the film, highest
point. He seems to have made a big
U-turn at the beginning of the film, so this is all a big shock
to everyone. Isn't.
It yeah, he seems to have totally changed his mind on what
he wants to do. For a very urban film set in
Brooklyn mainly, and dealing with rap and things like that.

(34:15):
And the record, it does open with Oklahoma, you know.
Oh, what a beautiful morning, doesn't it?
Bright golden hay. He's on the Meadow and what have
you. Yeah.
Yeah, well, he's essentially he's all but clicking his heels
together because he's decided he's going to, he's going to do
this and he's he's going to figure it out somehow.
And obviously there then this ransom thing which comes.

(34:37):
The worst possible time. You know, it's a terrible time
for that to have happened. Most unfortunate for him.
But it comes so just out of nowhere, like there's no, you
don't see any build up to it. You don't see any.
There's no sense of, of stalking.
There's no sense, you know? But that's what happens, you
know? 1 moment, his son's there, the
next, apparently he's not. Quite a lot of crime films

(34:59):
always like double track the theinnocent parties with the Yeah
the. Yeah, the criminals, the.
Criminals going about their planning on what not.
Just see his his son and their their chauffeur's son being
dropped off at their basketball camp and innocently swapping
headbands. Yes, well then going at great

(35:20):
pains numerous times to explain to people that they're we're not
going to have our mobile phones on us for the next next few
hours. And they say that like 3 times,
almost winking at the camera at one stage.
So just to make sure you'd well,this is noted that comment.
We've talked about this when we talked about how you modernise

(35:40):
like the 87th Precinct, because you'd have to kill off mobile
phones. You'd have to mobile phones
totally change the nature of howof storytelling.
So you had to literally, like you say, they were like, oh,
you'd have to put it in a lock. Box so.
And all your identifying jewellery and all that sort of
stuff. Yeah.
So they kind of do that for mobile phones, but then like

(36:01):
pretend that CCTV doesn't kind of exist really.
So they they kind of do a littlebit of a explanation of.
I, I don't know how well coveredthose bits of the streets and
areas of the Bronx are, but but you, I mean, it's.
I'm fairly sure a public building such as that would
anyway, yeah. Around, around the train station

(36:22):
and stuff, you think? Yeah.
There is numerous points in thisfilm the way one cannot dig too
deeply. Into the court.
Yeah, it's it's funny actually the Speaking of mobile phones,
because the original in the book, am I right in remembering
that it's one of the few books from back then where there was
actually a use of a phone in an unusual there's a car phone.

(36:44):
Yes. So the original book does have a
car phone as part of its mechanism, which is?
Yeah, sort of. Well, that shows us really.
But you know, it's not the same thing as everybody having a
mobile phone and you know that you could track and all this
sort of stuff. You can only talk to talk to
them in the car from back in theapartment in some spit or
whatever it is. Yeah, that was it in the in the

(37:04):
book, yeah. So, yeah, you're all right,
though. I mean, the police involved in
this, apart from the sort of limited cast of them, Yeah.
You think there's a bit where everyone comes in and they set
up some laptops and, and that's it in terms of technology.
And then at some point I think it's like someone says, oh,
should we get some CCTV? Yeah, come to their set of all

(37:26):
laptops as it occurs to someone to check the CCTV from outside
the building where they get nothing.
It's extremely curious though, isn't it Just, well, they're too
busy shouting at people. Yeah, too busy telling.
Yeah. Yeah, too busy making
assumptions about people based on their.
Previous, previous criminal record.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Well, in particular that is Jeffrey Wright there as as Paul

(37:49):
Christopher, the chauffeur, general factotum friend.
Da da, da, da, da character. He's very good.
I mean, he's, he's, well, Jeffrey Wright's always very.
Good. Yeah, he's cracking.
But yeah, that coach, the basketball coach was Rick Fox,
who is actually a former basketball player and actor.
So there's a there's a handful of real people in this.

(38:10):
Lost on us a little. Bit there were quite a lot of
nods for people who knew about basketball, which went straight
over my head. I could tell there was some kind
of reference going on. I'm like, no, I have no idea.
A bit with the Beat Cups and oneof them wanted his autograph and
one of them really didn't. Yeah, I made some reference to
someone, didn't he, that I didn't, didn't catch.
And I believe the guy who's the news reader was also actually a

(38:32):
news reader or a host of CNN. Don Lemon there.
Were quite a few sort of celebrity cameos, and I suppose
there was some promising young artist in who was actually Ice
Spice, I noticed at one point. Yes, I don't know who ice spice
is, but. The only thing I've ever heard
by her is I think one of the singles was called and I don't
know if I should be swearing on this, but she did have a single

(38:54):
call. I think something like think
you're the shit, brackets fart, something like that.
Well, that's very sophisticated.Yeah, the chorus is just you
think you're the shit. You ain't even the fart over and
over again. Oh, I see.
Catchy. OK.
Yeah. So.
She was in it. Yeah, fair enough.

(39:16):
For no reason whatsoever, I think he just says hello to her
and and then in the office. Oh, was that the person I'm
talking to in the office? Not even the one playing the
guitar in the logo. No, no, Oh no, she Can't Sing.
Interesting. OK, well, there we are.
Yeah, well, I suppose we should.While we're talking about
musicians in this film, we should probably mention, I mean,

(39:38):
I assume everyone's figured thatthis is all going to be spoiler
ridden this this review. Anyway, is that the the baddie,
as it were, is young Felon, played by as soon as possible,
Rocky. A$AP Rocky again, who?
I know the name, but I couldn't tell you anything.
About but I hadn't heard any of his music until the the actual

(39:58):
film. It's a bit of, it's a bit of a
funny thing when they cast musicians in, you know, actual
acting roles in films with sort of heavyweights like Denzel
Washington, you know? Yeah, it's a bit difficult to
know quite whether that works onany level really, but.
Yeah, I don't know if it was a good or bad performance.
Was it what they wanted? Was it, you know, he did it?

(40:20):
They sort of tie him up in scenarios where he doesn't have
to really move while while acting, you know?
At the end, he did a fairly a good performance of somebody
who's clearly completely deranged at the end when the
entire film goes slightly sideways for a little bit, but

(40:40):
it's. Some strange things that the the
bit in the studio where they both like sort of sort of
threatening each other through the medium of a rap battle was a
bit excruciating, I thought. Yeah, that's where that felt a
little bit like, oh, this feels like, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, it's tricky, but youknow, as which is probably the

(41:01):
whitest podcast to be reviewing this film.
I I, I suspect there've been many white podcasts.
It's very white podcasts that have reviewed the film, to be
honest. Fair enough.
It's the magic of podcasts, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah. So I made some notes as as as I
went through. So I like I I wasn't keen right
from the start on the fact that when highest to lowest popped up
on screen, the 2 looked like a cartoon, like you were expecting

(41:24):
a wacky film. But we have Oklahoma then start
so but very nice shots of the city.
I mean, that's the thing with New York.
It's very hard to film New York badly.
And this was filmed very nicely.Yeah, like beautiful kind of
drone sort of shots weren't there.
Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was even shot
very well when it was down to Stlevel and and subterranean even.
Yeah, well, yeah, they were the best bits I think, weren't they?

(41:46):
When? Yeah, the action.
When they got it went out of thepenthouse.
Yeah, I think a lot of the the penthouse scenes are a bit
spoiled by the clearly obvious, you know, whatever trickery they
do with the out outside as we'reall like the car journeys, which
are all very staged if you're not a mean, I thought.

(42:06):
Yeah. Well, it's, I suppose you
consider how when we talked about high and low, we we talked
about how the first part of thatfilm was very stagy, but that
was partly the fact that it was shot to be like a stage play.
And also it was the 60s and not 2025.
But yeah, but it kind of burst into life, didn't it?
Really in? Like the the moment they get out

(42:28):
of the the penthouse. Yeah.
So, yeah, like I said, based on the novel in the credits was a
shock to me. AI, of course, is present by
virtue of being one of the reasons he doesn't want to sell
the company is because the straydog apparently wants to make
records with AI. And people in the music business
keep saying things like it's themoney, it's a music business,

(42:50):
you know, all that sort of stuff.
But to all that's going on. And then, yeah, we get the the
kidnapping. We don't get any need to sneak
the police in in this film. So if you remember in high and
low, they have to sort of dress them up to sneak them in here.
We don't have any of that. Sort of like the places being
watched. Yeah, there's, there's no,
there's no, don't, don't involvethe police at all.

(43:12):
It's like, yeah, involve the police.
Yeah, He rings the police instantly.
There's no two ways about it, you know.
They're knocking the door and they're very polite about coming
in. Is it?
Are we all? Right.
Can we come in? Come in.
Yeah, and then they're just really rude to everyone.
Yeah. There's a weird sequence where
King and Paul, Christopher or whatever his name is his, his
chauffeur friend are talking andsuddenly he has a hand grenade.

(43:37):
Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. That was a cute.
And he, yeah, he says something about never know when we're
going to let this off or something.
It's just like, so you've got a hand, a live hand grenade in the
office and it's never referred to before or after.
Yeah, it's like Chekhov's hand grenade, but not.
Yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that.

(43:59):
What a curious moment. That was, yeah, it's a bit odd.
A blue It was a blue hand grenade as well.
Yeah, makeup, you know, all sorts of colours these days, you
know, I know it's a, a, a choiceto distinguish it as a thing
though. But why?
Why were the family videos, the memories of this family in 2025,
presumably? Why are they on cinefilm?
Yeah, I thought the same. Sorry there.

(44:20):
Were a few other bits. That, yeah, but then there was a
few other bits. Too, And I don't know what
linked those bits because they didn't seem to be anything that
connected them or any particularreason why they're on cinefilm.
Yeah, because so the the memories, siney film is a sort
of shorthand for the past. So fine, OK, I can understand
that. But then when at the end, when
young felons being at court and he says, you know, all right,

(44:41):
talk to your public, that's on siney film, like and that's not
the past, that's the then. So I don't.
I mean, yeah. I'm sure that there is a reason
I can't figure out what it is. Yeah, it should have just had it
with the little corner things and the red circle in the top
corner. More like a mobile phone type
thing, yeah. Maybe he just didn't want to do

(45:03):
that. Yeah, Well, yeah, yeah, I
thought exactly the same. It was a it's a weird one
because he did change up the look of the film at certain
points very effectively. And interestingly, that would
seem like a bit of an odd affectation to me.
But you know, what? Do I know some good lines.
You've got the best ears in the business, but the coldest heart

(45:24):
or cutting. We all sort of.
So, yeah. I mean, I do like the bit when
he was talking to. So, yeah, I can't even hold him.
Douglas King. But it's not David King is
talking to the pictures of famous people in his office,
asking them what they would do, Asking James Brown, Stevie
Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin what they would do in

(45:45):
this scenario. So what do we think they would
do in this scenario? Would they give the money?
So we went backwards. Aretha.
What? Aretha, if she had 70 and a half
million, would she give the money to save someone else's
child? I I feel like Aretha would.
I'd like to think. She would.
But you never know, I'm a bit onthe fence with Aretha.
Yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah.
I've got, I've got a lot more faith in Aretha than you.

(46:09):
Yeah, I don't know. Why do I know?
Well, I think in some of these, in an alternative podcast that
I've been listening to that about such things, yeah.
I think she had quite great jealousies of rivals, yeah.
She made that was it. I think that may be the same
source, that podcast being History of Rock Music and 500

(46:30):
songs by Andrew Hickey. But yeah, so I do think there
could be reasons why she wouldn't, you see.
You were very certain about whatJames Brown would do.
James Brown absolutely wouldn't.He's keeping his money.
Yeah. Jimi Hendrix I don't think would
have ever had that much money to.
No, he probably wouldn't. No.
But if he had had the money, he would have probably vaguely
intended to, but he would have probably forgotten.

(46:50):
Yeah. I do know from Andrew Hickey
that he was notoriously skinned throughout most of his life
because he just continually owedpeople money for.
Yeah, that sounds, sounds very plausible, yeah.
Yeah, he didn't quite get. He never far along enough to
actually have a keep any money and actually reap the rewards of
his talent. So who else?

(47:10):
Stevie Wonder? But he could have just rung him
up. He could, yeah.
Stevie Wonder's still around. He.
Could and he seemed like a a guywho would have had Stevie
Wonder's number as well. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. The implication was that he knew
all these people at some. Point, didn't he?
Quite how he would have not. Yeah, how would he have known
Jimi Hendrix? I don't think that quite worked
out. Doesn't track, but anyway, yeah,
but we get to a point. So like High and Low has that

(47:35):
brilliant moment where suddenly we have the pink smoke.
You know, when they've they've sewn the tracker stuff into the
bag that they know that he's going to try and burn and the
pink smoke happens and like essentially Act 2 of the film
goes on from there. We don't have a moment like this
in this film, but we do have a very obvious cut point where the
police put their plan to deliverthe money into action once

(47:55):
King's decided he's going to payonce everyone's told him he's a
Dick head. There was a really weird shot on
the balcony where the police detective who was explaining the
process was suddenly on the balcony not talking to anyone.
And. He must have been on a trolley
and they must have been pulling him towards the camera.
Or something. Yeah.
He's doing the piece directly tothe camera.
It was like a Dolly scene, wasn't it?

(48:16):
Yeah. Like a sort of like like a
Hitchcock moment of impending dread.
But suddenly he wasn't. But he was talking to people,
but there was no one there. Yeah, it was it was an odd
choice that I I remember now, yeah, like sort of breaking the
4th wall and explaining to to usdirectly, but but with this
weird thing happening with the focus of the background at the
same time, I. Yeah, I feel like they were

(48:38):
pulling him on a little trolley towards a camera.
Well, yeah, that would do it. Which I thought was a weird
decision. But then as I say, we got to the
they started going around to deliver the money via being on
the trains, which was a very interesting sequence.
And there was points where they were using this different lens
or different film treatment or, or processing or something.
And it looked really interesting.
Yeah, that was good. Well, it got me thinking of

(48:59):
Denzel Washington in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 as
well. Yes, the other New York based
underground film. That's very true, yeah.
Yeah, it did give it that sort of grimy sort of 70s field in
there, which was, which was which was pretty cool.
Yeah, so it was, it was interesting having the not

(49:20):
putting them on the train, whichis always an interesting enough
experience in New York anyway. I haven't done it a couple of
times. But then also having it on a
game day for the Yankees, wasn'tit?
And so in have it, carriage is full of people chanting.
Boston sucks right into the camera, like looking dead into
the camera. So I don't know what Spike Lee's

(49:40):
affiliation sports wise are, butit doesn't seem very keen on
Boston. They are in fact the only
baseball team I've seen play. Oh, obviously it's their
opponents as well. If I can't remember who they
were playing on their own, they don't have run around.
So let's talk about the drop off.
So it's fairly implausible in high and low because they're on

(50:04):
a bullet train. And in high and low he has to
push the suitcase out of a tiny window at a particular point so
it can be picked up outside. That's in the middle of the
countryside, that's in the middle of.
The countryside, there's no one else around here.
He has to drop a bag between tworail cars on an elevated section
of the track so we aren't in theunderground, but they also pull

(50:27):
the train emergency brake to make him drop.
It yeah, they didn't because he,they said they were going to
tell them when to drop it, but they actually, yeah, they pulled
the emergency rate and and they were waiting exactly underneath
where he happened to drop it. So they must have known that he
was going to drop it by accident.
But how is that? Amazing.
Yeah, it it seems totally avoidable.

(50:49):
You know they didn't. They could have just, they could
have just told him where to dropit and he dropped it rather than
going to it. And.
And why you'd, yeah, pick like in the middle of a well, I
suppose. I mean, maybe it's easy to to to
lose a, a tale if it's in the middle of a Puerto Rican St
festival. But also it just means that

(51:10):
there are hundreds and hundreds of witnesses to absolutely
everything that happens. So one of the people who
collects the bag is in fact dancing in the choreographed
dance. Catches the bag, spins round,
puts it, gives it to someone else.
Carries on his dance with his dance partner.
The the string of coincidences. Yeah, timing and look.

(51:30):
It it was very daft that, yeah, didn't seem to be any need to
make it as contrived, really. It's apparent giant network of
of people on identical black mopeds and matching black
outfits who can do these multiple decoy bag swaps as
well. We went on too long that all
those that part of the film. I thought they were just passing

(51:53):
the bag. They didn't.
Did you at any point see anyone take out the tracker from the
bag and put it in in a decoy bag?
So they. Followed the wrong bag, no.
Did did he just forget that theygot a tracker in there?
Because they should have still been following the right bag,
shouldn't they? Yeah, some.
At some point in that chase where the bag never stops
moving, they managed to swap it out for a bag full of tampons.
Yeah. They're all loose, Yeah.

(52:16):
So. So yeah, it's completely
impossible what they did. Yeah.
They never had time to do that. No, but even the tracker being
in the bag in the 1st place seemed like a really weird thing
because I thought it would be like, I think I read somewhere,
oh they, they, they put an air tag on the bag which would be
small. You know it's not.
It looks like a big thing. Like a yeah.

(52:37):
Shoe box. Yeah, yeah.
That this, this day and age, I'mfairly sure that the things you
can buy yourself to go on your holiday are like tiny.
You just put it in the stitchingof the bag as well.
This is it because if you think again, Kingo Gondo's skill is he
was a leather worker and so his ability to unpick and re stitch
leather is important in the filmhigh and low because he gets to

(53:00):
conceal the tracker capsule paint thing that you know, and
that's a really important thing here.
The equivalent is, I think, kindof the idea that David King has
the best ears and ears in the business.
So he can hear a song and and a voice and a song and go that.
That was the voice I heard on the phone.
That's that's very true that police don't believe him.

(53:23):
Yeah, which is really. So there's a point where the
he's saying something that wouldbe really, really useful.
It's like. Given that they have no other
leads whatsoever, they'd be like, that's an interesting
lead, but they just basically shout at him and tell him to
shut up. Until he goes away.
We'll deal with your clue in theorder of.
Which it deserves something theysay.

(53:44):
Yeah, In the meantime, we want to keep asking this sleepy child
that's been beaten up and kidnapped if he remembers
anything else when he's been saying no.
I don't remember anything else. Can I have a rest now please?
Yeah, so. Yeah, Yeah.
Well. Yeah, well, as I said at the
beginning, there was certain aspects of this film one can't
dig too deep into. But you know, the other bit

(54:07):
about that backdrop off off the train is that apparently it was
filmed from exactly the right point at exactly the right time,
and it goes viral. Yes, that was another.
Very, extremely. Someone who was on the same
level. So I don't know.
So that must have been, but theydidn't go into whether that was
supposed to be like the the perpetrator have done that to

(54:29):
humiliate king or something likethat.
But he ends up sort of becoming in his favour and you know.
He's apparently some kind of hero for for dropping a bag of
money by mistake when a train stops.
But I guess yeah, he's delivering money to to try and
save someone's life. So OK, that's quite heroic.
I guess in a way they did. I feel like they did try and

(54:50):
paint. He was more sympathetic than
than the king figure in in the book.
And and LOL, like he he because he's he really doesn't come
across well in the earlier versions, does he?
He's like very much doing the thing on the duress, whereas he
seems like he kind of, he actually has a bit of a
conscience in this one and sort of wants to do the right thing.

(55:12):
I. Suppose that's the biggest
difference, isn't it? The book and the high and low.
The dynamic is the the police being the hero.
Yeah, the the like correct the conscience and yeah.
Whereas here, those types of characters are completely
absent, aren't they? So it's all left to to Yeah, the
king character to be both, really.

(55:32):
I don't I I just get the impression Spike Lee isn't
really interested in telling that story at all, is he?
So he. Just no.
And also, telling any story about the police as heroes in
2025 in America is a very absolutely difficult and
complicated thing to address. Really, it's not something
you're going to if if, if someone's going to try and do
it. It's not going to be Spike Lee.
No, I would not have thought so.But yeah, yeah, David King does.

(55:55):
It's a bit weird. He is like his character goes up
and down so much high to low. That's true.
You know, 1 moment he's totally up because he's going to be a
success again. He's going to buy the company
and then he's down because his son's been kidnapped.
But then his son's returns and he's like, oh, I don't care.
And then he's but then he does care.

(56:16):
But. They're selling.
His an action guy. So the beginning of the film,
you know, he's clearly going to be selling his business.
Then he isn't. So maybe he's prone to.
Random. Yeah.
And then his behaviour in the office where he's he's listening
to, you know, we're supposed to know that he's getting back to
his roots because he puts headphones on, which is
apparently thing he used to do when he really cared about the

(56:36):
music. At which point the film becomes
very obviously sponsored by Beats headphones, who I do think
have a thing with Apple anyway. So yeah, sounds plausible.
But it is weird when suddenly you get loads of close-ups of
these Beats Gold Beats headphones and then even
weirder, the fake record companylogo goes across the screen in

(56:56):
like a wipe. But it doesn't wipe, it just
goes across the screen. It's.
I honestly do not know what thatwas about, of all of the
decisions in the film. There's a few weird little
visual things like that. There's the bit later on where
there's a screen divide that's achain of little guns as well.
Yeah, yeah. Like it adds anything to

(57:17):
anything. It just seems odd.
There was numerous stylistic things that yeah, just popped up
the once or twice and then that was it.
It's like, Oh well, it yeah for no, apparently I.
Think this film like that can belike, it's like quite
naturalistic all the time and then just veers off into
something that doesn't seem to go with the tone of the rest of
the movie. Well, particularly the music

(57:39):
video at the end. Yeah, well, yeah, it's very
strange all of a sudden, doesn'tit?
But. I couldn't work out what that
was supposed to be because so I I assumed we were going to get
the the face to face bit at the end because that's what high to
low is famous for ending on is that the face to face of the
captured person and and king or king girl And you were you were

(58:00):
waiting for that to happen and it was going to happen.
But just before it happens, you have a this short music video
about the song that's featured in the film with the full
dancing girls and all the horrible, horrible lyrics.
There was some bottoms in it, Yes.
OK. Yeah.
Can't. Hide your.

(58:20):
Bottoms not in those dresses that they were wearing.
I couldn't work out. Was that supposed to be King
hallucinating? Is it supposed to be in the mind
of young felon, the, you know, the perpetrator?
Is it just a strange stylistic choice to play into the world of
music videos? Yeah.
Is it all of them? Yes.

(58:42):
Well, you're almost at the pointthat does Spike Lee even know
there's certain choices in that that you kind of question what's
the point or you know? Yeah, what?
Purpose they are serving and I think.
Yeah, I guess. Yeah, you could, you could
speculate that it's, it's sort of King imagining how he how he

(59:05):
could market this, this sort of incredibly suddenly popular
incarcerated musician. Because he's very, he's in the
prison jumpsuit, isn't he? In the in the music video bit,
which isn't actually wearing in real life when they cut back to
him. No, indeed.
Or is it then? Well, conversely, is it that guy
imagining what it would be like now?
He's a big success and clearly this guy's going to bow down to

(59:26):
him and say be on be on my label.
Yeah. So it could be either, couldn't
that? Yeah.
But yeah, it then gets them to the head to head scene, which I
think is an interesting 1, you know, because yeah, young felons
character does go complete. You think he's just like
circumstances have been against him, but then he is a complete
loony at the end. Yeah, Well, yeah, yeah.

(59:46):
What starts as just a bit of a bravado spiel.
Yeah. You kind of like, now this guy's
kind of completely, yeah, delusional about the dynamic.
That's because isn't it just said they'll be in prison for 45
years or something before? 25 Yeah, they worked out a deal
for 25 years. It's hilarious that he's he's
telling everyone that he's innocent when he's going into

(01:00:07):
the into into the building and it's like, well, I'm pretty sure
they just found this gigantic bag of cash in your house and
like his wife's Cartier braceleton your missus.
So. Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting, but I've.
But then you say I've had over abillion streams, you should sign

(01:00:27):
me to my label. It's like, yeah, not in the.
Well, I don't know, maybe peoplewould do that.
It's a strange world, we. Live, I mean, have you?
Not to get too dark, but have you read about this?
I think he'd just call, I think they just call him David, but
it's spelled D4 BB because that's kind of happening now
when like he's his career's gonerocketing since they found

(01:00:50):
humour remains in the boot of his car.
Yes. So I mean, who knows?
It's it's a dark, Dark World we live in.
Yeah, it certainly is. Yeah, righto.
Well, I mean, I ought to make one more point.
There's a point, you know, with the rap battle, and it takes
place between the control room of a studio and the actual
studio itself. So the mechanism of how that
works is you have a microphone in the control room and you

(01:01:13):
press a button to talk into it and the people in wearing their
headphones in the studio can hear you.
So he does press that button. He does.
Press that button. That's all fine, no problem
there. The guy in the other room at
some point takes his headphones off completely and so he just
wouldn't have been able to hear him.
Unless they've got some kind of monitored speakers in.
There. Maybe he's an amazing lip

(01:01:33):
reader. Yeah, maybe they're just
shooting each other after that anyway.
That's true. Yeah, well, maybe that's that's
what caused the breakdown in communication.
I can't hear you. Shoot, shoot, shoot.
Yeah. Run, run, run.
Yeah, it's a It's a bit of a silly scene though, isn't it?
There's not many shots fired at all, is there?
I think there's four shots or something like that fired in it,

(01:01:55):
the total. And yet somebody loses an eye.
And they all have a good laugh about it.
Yeah. All right, Popeye.
Hey, Cyclops there. That's exactly how they did it
as well. Pretty much.
Yeah, so many curious things in that film that, yeah, you just

(01:02:17):
can't help but think, was there that much, you know?
Yeah, it's. It's odd because there's
there's, there's like a bunch oflike good stuff in it, but
there's, yeah, loads of just bits where you think.
Well, surely you could have spent 10 minutes more thinking
we can slightly make this. Not that you want it documentary

(01:02:39):
realistic, but. No, no, just.
Bits where you think stylistically a bit more
consistent or the plot kind of just a bit up and smartened up a
bit, yeah, with very little change to anything, but yeah.
I think the the the problem for me really out of all of it was

(01:02:59):
the ending because after you've had the head to head, it just
keeps going. Yeah.
And why the idea with King's Ransom and High to Low is that,
you know, eventually they made this decision.
Everything has come good, technically speaking, but the
king character, the central character of it has lost
everything is have to start again.
And now this does happen here, but it implies that he's got

(01:03:21):
he's going to start again and become an instant success.
Yeah, it doesn't seem to have really lost very much actually.
He seems absolutely fine. And there's a slight, there's a
small conversation with his wifewhere she's, she's like, are we
going to be fine? He's like, yeah, like, Oh well.
Good. Well, she does ask him twice and
he does say yes twice just to check.
And that's. Yeah.

(01:03:41):
But then he seems about to sign.Very bland artist though, so
maybe, maybe he's as delusional as the the ransom.
What a really. Bad stage name Sula C Singh.
What does the C stand for? Yeah, Sula can sing.
Very strange. Yeah, and.
He's going to sign her because his son fancies her.

(01:04:03):
That's mainly it, but also because it's really authentic
and you know that's that's. Actually sings a song where the
lyrics are essentially David King.
He was very rich but then his son got kidnapped but then he
did not. It was someone.
Else. Imagine how that would make you
feel, I said. Let's say essentially lyrics to
the song by coincidence. I'm not sure quite what he's

(01:04:27):
trying to sort of say about it. It feels a little bit like he
wants to kind of, he's trying tohave his cake and eat it with
his commentary on on sort of thestate of music.
Because he he wants to be done with the kids and get like
current fashionable artists in like A$AP Rocky and Princess
Nokia and Ice Spice and whoever.But then he also wants to say,

(01:04:49):
actually this modern music is garbage and everyone just cares
about money. It's it's a bit sort of like
boomer guy trying to engage withmodern music and tell, tell
these young kids what it's all about.
I've got this tune for you. It's called the Fromeus
Bandersnatch. Yeah.
Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe it shares that blind
spot that Bane had. Yeah.

(01:05:12):
But the guy in his big rant in prison makes a good point to him
saying, you know, when he's saying it's not all about the
money. And he says, well, it was.
It was people like you who made it that way.
You. Know.
So. I don't know that necessarily
the music industry would be, youknow, quaking in its boots after
the body blow of highest to lowest, You know, Yeah, there

(01:05:35):
are points there, obviously veryimportant points.
But it's, yeah, it does feel a bit like these kids with their
phones. In fact, there is essentially
one sequence, which is these kids with their phones.
Quite early on it gets in there,doesn't it?
Yeah, I, I totally agree with them about AI and all that
business. Oh yes, absolutely.
That's. Cool.
But yeah, it's like, but you caneither have either have like

(01:05:58):
felonious kidnapping rappers whoonly care about music, who only
care only care about money, or you can have really bland
singers doing like incredibly generic music which is really
authentic and nothing in between.
These are the two choices. Yeah, all that music going on

(01:06:20):
about in the film Highest to lowest, and they didn't bother
to get a sync licence for my song High to Low, which is on
Good Grief's first album, Shake Your Faith and still be heard.
You know, you can buy the recordor hear it online.
Imagine my life would be totallydifferent of them sync money,
royalties I would have got from that film.
I've already written a song about the moral implications of

(01:06:41):
High to Low in a very poetic wayand.
If they could have, could have had you in a little cameo, just
shake you doing some fancy handshake with him in the office
there. Yeah, absolutely.
See, that's what every spicy films missing is a 47 year old
white man from Liverpool and Yorkshire going.

(01:07:01):
What's that mean? He maybe just thought he
couldn't afford your fee. No, that's it, you know, that's
it. I can't get the visa visa these
days. Too complex a character to work
with I. Know that's it.
My demands are such that. I don't know if we can get Paul
Abbott get Ice Spice on the phone instead.
That's something I spice to do alot of my work nowadays anyway,

(01:07:25):
Right? Let's try and round off on this
then, because we're obviously here discussing this film, but
we are coming at it from this perspective of how many people
will have read King's Ransom andtalked about it as much as we
have. How many people have seen high
to low and talked about it in the detail we have.
I'm not suggesting it makes a specialist.
It just means we've looked at this material, you know, with,

(01:07:45):
you know, perhaps more than someothers have or the general
viewing audience will have done.So we've come to this knowing
it's a high, high and low remake.
So we can't we, there's no surprises.
We knew that the kidnapping was going to be a foul up.
You know, that all that stuff isnot going to be a shock to us.
So you've got to take that on onboard.
But then I imagine that the the blurb for the film would would

(01:08:07):
spoil that anyway. Really.
So it's a bit of a tricky 1. Go on then Stevo.
How do we how do you feel about it having seen it?
Yeah, I thought the beginning bit and the end bit were quite
draggy, but when it got going and it livened up, not, not, not
just necessarily because it became a bit of an action film

(01:08:30):
for a bit, but it just kind of moved on.
The pace was a lot better and stylistically I thought it was a
bit more interesting. But yeah, there's quite a lot of
ridiculous bits and I thought, yeah, slightly preachy and kind
of cringy old person kind of ways of which we've mentioned.
So yeah, not particularly highly.

(01:08:52):
I don't think really we need a unit of currency as well.
I was going to suggest the expletive because there's quite
a lot extremely large amount of swear words in that film.
Yeah, I was going to suggest Swiss Francs.
Oh, Swiss francs. Yeah, I don't know we could do
it on the scale of 17.5 million.I can't do that.
That would be. That does involve some fairly

(01:09:13):
hefty arithmetic those. Trees, blue hand grenades,
that's. The one.
Maybe we'll say that and then in20 years time we'll have no
idea. Where we're on earth, are we
going on? About. 20 years, it's probably 3
or 4. Three.
Yeah. Well, yeah, it wouldn't take
that long for me to forget. So yes.
What? What does it need to be marked
out of? Out of 100.
Out of 100 I will be very generous I think and go 50.

(01:09:38):
Right, Morgan. I mean, I did quite enjoy it
even on a second viewing, but it's got quite a lot of clunky
bits and quite a lot of bits that do make me kind of do make
me cringe a little bit. But I'm going to be slightly
more generous. I'm going to give it 50 5 blue
hang grenades I think. What's the same number of box?

(01:10:01):
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm much the same opinion wise.
I I mean, it's funny. Really.
Moments doesn't. He.
It does. And Denzel Washington, you know,
he's doing a lot of work in thatfilm.
You know, he's got a, a strange sort of set of moral responses
he's going to have to. He's having to try and get
through. Yeah, and he's also having to

(01:10:22):
try and deliver it whilst talking half in song lyrics and
half in just sort of weird business patter.
And yeah, it's it's an odd one. He's doing a lot of work.
Some of the rest of the cast arejust fine.
Well, the Yeah, they blew the budget on him and Jeffrey
Wright. You get the.
The thief in and. The yeah, they carrying a lot of

(01:10:42):
weight for the rest of the ensemble, but to be honest,
they're not asked to do very much of them shouting.
It's a It is a tricky one. It is interesting.
I mean, the stylistic touches are interesting but confusing to
me more than anything. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah, some people might, might

(01:11:02):
watch it and think those bits are amazing.
I mean, you know, it's just, yeah, it's just didn't.
And it just kind of takes me outof it really, just because you
stop enjoying the film and startthinking, oh, why did it happen?
You're just kind of like waitingfor the next weird thing to
yeah. Yeah, I, I don't know.
I mean, obviously, as I say, youknow, I'm a 47 year old white

(01:11:25):
man from England. I'm not necessarily going to be
the person that most understandsthe black perspective in this.
And I'm sure though, if I was watching other Spike Lee things,
I'd probably find it a much moremore understandable take on
those things. Whereas at the moment you throw
in money and status and all thissort of stuff.
It's very, I don't know, it's a bit odd.
I I struggle with that, that side of it a little bit.

(01:11:46):
And still at the end of the day,I still want it to be more
McBain. But also the Kurosawa film is so
good. You know, one of the greatest
films ever made type thing that yeah, it's tricky.
I can't go above 50, I'm afraid.50 blue hand grenade.
These some should be easy to do,shouldn't they?
Really Well. But you need to remember to year
round down though, don't you? Yeah, so at 51.6 we round it

(01:12:11):
down to 51. Blue hand grenade.
That ceases to be, but not ridiculous.
They're the blue hand grenade. That's why it was there, so we
could have a unit of just. Thinking back to that, what a
crackers little bit of that film.
Yeah, maybe it's got a symbolismthat's passed me by on this

(01:12:32):
first watch, and I've certainly wasn't set out to be cynical
about this A. 2nd watch as well so.
You see, you just don't no deal with with a lot of the little
quirky flourishes. How many of those are on?
Didn't make the final cut, for example, and it may have been a
lot more consistent and it's just been edited in such a way

(01:12:55):
that so many of them are lost atwhat remains.
Doesn't quite hang together as was originally.
That's it. It's like if you're watching the
film consistently quirky if you're out and and then that's
sort of that's one thing. If you're watching the film,
that goes on for an hour being fairly naturalistic and throws
you a curveball, but then goes back to being naturalistic for

(01:13:17):
another half an hour and then throws another curveball and
it's just a bit odd it. Is it is.
All right, well, there we go. Highest to lowest receives the
official Hark the 87 Precinct podcast rating to 51 blue hand
grenades and we will wrap that up there.
Gosh, it's nice to be back. There we are.
So it remains to be seen when orif we will be back again and

(01:13:42):
whether we will be back with more to do with McBain, if we
can find anything or whether we'll do something a bit
different. Nose, we could.
We've got your nose potential. That's potential.
We're nearly in a new year, new opportunities.
New ideas? New trousers.
Absolutely. OK.
And with that, I am going to saygood night, as is Stevo.

(01:14:05):
Good night. And Morgan?
Fairly well. Bye.