#jeffery wright

Who do you think they will play in the upcoming Batman ll?

Basquiat (1996)

As in doctor.

Spike Lee’s latest, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s landmark  kidnapping thriller High and Low, stars Denzel Washington and costars the New York City of Lee’s romantic imagination. As in most of his films set in the city the director portrays it in vibrant colors as both an urban wonderland and as home. It certainly is for  Washington as David King, a music mogul who has leveraged “the best ears in the business” into a multimillion-dollar record label that is starting to lose its luster. On the eve of a buyout from a larger label King puts up almost all his assets (including his gorgeous penthouse home and collection of Afro-American art) to finance a stock buyback and get control of his business. It’s the worst possible time to get a message from kidnappers who have snatched his teenage son (Aubrey Joseph) and whose ransom demand risks the money he’s raised. And when it turns out the abductors have mistakenly taken the son of his driver and best friend (Jeffrey Wright) he finds himself in an ethical squeeze, facing possible ruin to save another man’s child. Washington  brings us inside a man facing the limits of his morality, his charismatic authority becoming flinty and hard.  It’s one of his best performances and anchors a white-knuckle thriller (a scene where the cops try to follow the ransom through a labyrinthian series of handoffs during the cities annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, intercut with salsa king Eddie Palmieri is one of the best sequences Lee has ever filmed) that also bridges the country’s class divide (when King confronts the kidnapper, played by rapper A$AP Rocky, the film’s themes are  brought down like a hammer). Recommended.

And honestly, love that for us.