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Spike Lee's new crime thriller, highest to lowest, reunites him with his favorite leading man, Denzel Washington, for a story about a very rich man with a very big problem.

In a tense story, that's part morality play and part action movie, Washington's music mogul confronts questions of responsibility and power.

I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about highest to lowest on pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.

Learn more at RWJF.org.

Joining us today is Soraya Nadia McDonnell.

She's a cultural critic, journalist, and the senior criticism editor for the Rumpus. Welcome back, Soraya. Hello, hello. Nice to be here again.

Absolutely. Glad to have you. In highest to lowest, Denzel Washington plays David King,

the powerful owner of a storied record label that isn't quite

as hot as it once was, but it's made him very rich. One day, someone kidnaps his teenage son,

Trey, and holds him for ransom, only it turns out there's been a mix-up. They didn't take Trey.

They took his buddy, Kyle, the son of David's closest friend

and driver, Paul. He's played by Jeffrey Wright. But even when the mistake is discovered,

the kidnapper still demands the money, many millions of dollars. But if it's about me,

then you can't expect me to pay $17.5 million for somebody else's son if it's about me.

But then his blood is going to be on your hands then. How you want it?

No, man.

David is trying to regain control of the business he spent his life building, and he desperately needs every penny to make that happen.

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