This essay definitely makes it clear to me how rich and complicated Paul’s struggle is in the film, but you’re right it almost feels accidental, a byproduct of Spike knowing his city well. It’s not the point he’s trying to make. I left the theater feeling like damn Spike got old. The ending is an old man’s soap box. Kids these days go about it the wrong way, they want it too easy. Being rich and famous IS worthy of aspiring to, so long as you do it through lame-ass rnb instead of offensive mumble rap.

The Kamala posters, the classist treatment from the cops, the super imbalanced relationship David has with Paul, it reads like a critique, but the film just doesn’t follow through? Maybe with a different ending I would feel different, but that scene felt like some old guy shit. Climb to the top the right way and one day you too can be a dick to your driver.

High and Low the Kurosawa film has more ambiguity to it, much more direct criticism of the bourgeoisie. Or at least it doesn’t feel like it tacitly approves of the pursuit of wealth as a noble cause. I don’t need a film to condemn the bad behavior of its characters, but it felt like Spike fully stamped “I Approve This Message” on the ending, which was disappointing.

you’re bold, and you can see. great stuff

I don’t have much to add, except that I enjoyed this and will watch the movie now, and Jeffrey Wright elevates every role I’ve seen him in since Angels in America.

Excellent take on Paul's character arc. The scene where he begs David for the ransom really crystallizes that class divide in a way mainstream film rarely does. I remeber watching it thinking how the Five Percenter poster and Malcolm X photo weren't just set dressing but actual remnants of political formations that got systematically dismantled. The contrast with Kamala posters in David's place is sharp.

This is a good analysis of what Spike is trying to do, but there are choices he makes that undermine its themes.

I didn’t like the first half of the movie because of its bombastic operatic score. It is overwrought and distracting. But after speaking with my wife when we left the theater, I realized that the score was like May December’s. It is incongruous with what we see on screen in order to detach the audience from the King family. It is meant to have us look at their lives critically, so that we can conclude that the Kings aren’t living in the real world. Indeed, David’s opening phone call is performed as if he were in a stage play, not a movie. We are all too aware of the artifice of King’s life from the moment we are introduced to him.

Although I appreciate what Lee is doing, he isn’t discerning in how he uses that score. To your point, we are clearly meant to sympathize most with Paul. But the same score which Lee previously used to disassociate the audience from King is also used when Paul begs him to pay the ransom. This is a confusing choice. Lee isn’t in control of his satiric abilities.

The film’s coda is all too neat for King. I found it a betrayal of what a lot of the movie was going for, perhaps because both Lee and Washington-who brought the project to him-identify too much with the Kings to see their critiques to their conclusions.