Highest 2 Lowest 2025

David King is a New York City music mogul, regarded as having the “best ears in the business” and the founder of Stackin’ Hits Records. Having once sold his majority stake in the company, King plans to buy back control to thwart a rival label’s takeover. To secure the cash for the deal, he puts up most of his personal assets, including his Dumbo penthouse and a prized collection of contemporary Black art, as collateral.

The day the deal is set to close, King gets an anonymous call from a kidnapper demanding $17.5 million in Swiss 1,000-franc notes for the safe return of his son Trey King. King immediately contacts the police and, with his wife Pam King, agrees to pay the ransom, even though the money is also vital for his business move. Yet Trey is soon found safe, because the kidnapper has mistakenly abducted Kyle Christopher, Trey’s best friend and the son of King’s driver and confidant Paul Christopher.

The kidnapper still insists on the ransom for Kyle’s life. Despite King’s initial willingness to ransom his own son, he hesitates to do the same for Kyle. Paul Christopher and Trey plead with him, and a partner warns that failing to act could damage the company’s public image. After a long night of inner conflict, King decides to pay the ransom.

Following the kidnapper’s plan, King packs the money into an Air Jordan backpack, which the police mark with a GPS tracker. He rides to Brooklyn’s Borough Hall subway stop and boards a train toward Yankee Stadium. As the train nears the stadium, the kidnapper orders him to move between the cars. An accomplice triggers the emergency brake, the car halts, and the bag slides between the cars and through the ironwork to the street. Another accomplice on a moped snatches it, and the bag is passed along between more riders as the escape zigzags through the Puerto Rican Day Parade. When the authorities finally catch the bagman, the cash is already gone, and Kyle is released in a nearby park.

King’s actions elevate him to hero status with the public, and several tracks from Stackin’ Hits climb the charts. Yet the lenders who funded the $17.5 million warn that the loan terms require repayment within two weeks, or they will seize the collateral since the money was meant for shares, not Kyle’s ransom. They argue that King breached their contract by diverting the funds.

Kyle cannot identify his kidnapper, though he recalls hearing a distinctive hip-hop track during captivity. King, listening to a playlist Trey often curates, recognizes the song and deduces that the artist, Yung Felon, must be behind the scheme. The police dismiss this lead, so King and Paul Christopher go after Felon themselves. King reconnects with Pam King and their infant son, who informs him that Felon is an ex-con turned aspiring rapper who idolizes King. Felon’s wife points King toward his recording studio, where a tense confrontation unfolds.

In an impromptu rap duel, Felon explains that he saw King as a father figure and resorted to kidnapping after years of being ignored. A gunfight erupts, and Felon flees onto an elevated subway train. King pursues him onto the platform and finally traps him between the cars, knocking him unconscious.

King offers Paul Christopher a place on the new label. Paul, who has injured his left eye in the gunfight, says it’s time for him and his son to try something new. Felon, now the world’s most-streamed artist, accepts a 25-year plea deal in return for a face-to-face meeting with King. When they meet, Felon presses to sign a deal, but King reveals he has left Stackin’ Hits to start a smaller label and rejects Felon, who reacts with anger and disappointment.

Back home, King, Pam King, and Trey audition a young singer-songwriter named Sula, discovered by Trey. Sula’s performance of her song “Highest 2 Lowest” impresses the family, who decide to sign her to their evolving label.