Spike Lee evokes NYC's magic amid crackdowns

THERE ARE A handful of filmmakers whom we reflexively think of as New York City directors—Gothamites who tell stories about the city and its people with a native's knowledge, insight, and compassion.

- JASON BAILEY Bloomberg

Martin Scorsese is the most obvious; Sidney Lumet is also clearly in the running. Then there's Spike Lee, perhaps the most New York of New York directors, whose pictures are rarely set outside of the five boroughs, and whose brash NYC identity comes across not only in his work but in his interviews, writings, and even appearances at major sporting events.

So it comes as no shock that his latest, Highest 2 Lowest, is a New York movie through and through. What's more surprising is, it arrives at a time when anti-city rhetoric feels louder than ever from the government, so the film serves as a striking response.

The story, which originated in Ed McBain's 1959 novel King's Ransom and was adapted by Akira Kurosawa into the 1963 film