High and Low
Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low – one of a run of successful movies from him in the late 1950s and early 1960s – is something of a surprise. It sets off in one direction, with a moral dilemma, only to wind up in a different place entirely, as a police procedural the likes of which you can catch on TV any night of the week. This comes as a bit of a relief, because for its first third the tension is so exquisitely pitched it’s hard to look at the screen. It’s based on an Ed McBain thriller and tells the story of a businessman locked in the middle of a struggle for control … Read more