Reuniting with his longtime leading man Denzel Washington and remaking an Akira Kurosawa crime classic, Lee captures energy and moral complexity, sometimes wildly.

The strangest development saga of any movie this summer includes A-list writers and directors (Mamet, Scorsese) coming and going, and studios spending millions trying to hone the right script. Then, a young producer and first-time screenwriter cracked the code and got Denzel Washington's attention.

From the opening moments of “Highest 2 Lowest,” Spike Lee’s remix-as-remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film “High and Low,” you should know that the filmmaker is here primarily for a