Denzel Washington’s 133-Minute Thriller Beats Ben Affleck’s Animals After Same Inspiration

Two Oscar-winning filmmakers, one familiar kidnapping dilemma, and two very different critical verdicts. Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest holds 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, comfortably ahead of Ben Affleck’s Animals, which debuted at 41% from 27 reviews. Both films force wealthy men to decide how much another family’s child is worth, but critics have responded far more enthusiastically to Lee’s interpretation. The resemblance goes beyond coincidence.

Denzel Washington’s 133-minute thriller is an acknowledged reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963), while Ben Affleck’s Netflix movie tackles a remarkably similar predicament without being credited as a remake. Even RogerEbert has questioned the resemblance, although sharing a premise does not establish plagiarism.

Highest 2 Lowest Gives Kurosawa a New Rhythm

Credit: A24

Spike Lee swaps Kurosawa’s Japanese shoe-company executive for a New York music mogul, giving the original’s moral dilemma a contemporary American pulse. Denzel Washington plays David King, whose fortune and reputation come under threat when kidnappers mistakenly abduct his chauffeur’s son instead of his own. Saving the boy means risking an enormous sum for someone outside his immediate family.

The premise originates with Kurosawa’s High and Low, itself adapted from Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom. Apple TV officially describes Lee’s film as a reinterpretation. Yet Lee does more than relocate the story. He introduces questions about Black entrepreneurship, artistic ownership, and whether wealth distances successful people from the communities that helped build them. Washington gives King enough arrogance to make his hesitation believable without reducing him to a cartoon villain. The film also marks Lee and Washington’s fifth collaboration after Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, and Inside Man.

Its 83% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests critics largely appreciated the reinvention, even if Lee’s stylistic choices are not universally admired.

Animals Repeats the Dilemma but Divides Critics

Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington in Animals (2026) | Image via Netflix

Ben Affleck’s Animals takes the same moral predicament into Los Angeles politics. Ben Affleck plays Mark Kimball, a wealthy lawyer running for mayor whose apparent family emergency becomes considerably more complicated when kidnappers mistakenly abduct his housekeeper’s son. Kerry Washington plays his wife Abigail, while Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, and Luis Gerardo Méndez complete the principal ensemble. The resemblance to Kurosawa’s story was consequential even before filming.

Affleck revealed that he delayed production after learning Spike Lee was developing a movie with a comparable premise. PEOPLE detailed the production changes. The critical response has been considerably harsher than Lee’s. The Associated Press awarded Animals two stars, while Roger Ebert called it Affleck’s weakest directorial effort. However, the verdict is not unanimous. FandomWire’s review praised its aggressive political-thriller approach.

That disagreement reveals where the two films diverge. Lee examines the obligations that accompany wealth, while Affleck focuses on political opportunism and how easily public virtue can become a calculated performance. Both films borrow from the same moral playbook, but Lee currently holds a 42-percentage-point advantage in Rotten Tomatoes critics’ scores. The resemblance becomes even more striking in the finale.

As FandomWire’s Animals ending explained explores, Mark turns the botched kidnapping into a political triumph by concealing the truth about the rescue and taking credit for another man’s bravery. Unlike Highest 2 Lowest, where the ransom dilemma tests a wealthy man’s conscience, Animals pushes its protagonist toward outright manipulation. Mark doesn’t merely survive the moral test; he finds a way to profit from it. 

For now, critics have given Washington and Lee the stronger verdict. Which film handles the kidnapping dilemma better? Share your thoughts below, and follow FandomWire for more movie comparisons, reviews, and streaming coverage.

Highest 2 Lowest is streaming on Apple TV, while Animals premiered on Netflix on October 9, 2026.