Pure talent, fatal flaw

Above the Rim (1994)

Rated: R

Runtime: 97 minutes

Stars: Duane Martin, Tupac Shakur, Leon Robinson, Marlon Wayans, Bernie Mac

Director: Jeff Pollack

Plot: Kyle Watson (Duane Martin) is a high school star basketball player trying to earn a scholarship to Georgetown University. Birdie (Tupac Shakur) is a cigar-chewing, club-owning, girl-supplying, drink-getting, money-giving gangsta. Shep (Leon Robinson) used to be a high school star basketball player, but is currently a security guard with a lot of personal demons to overcome. Bugaloo (Marlon Wayans) is Kyle’s best friend and recently got out of jail. Flip (Bernie Mac) is a homeless guy that may have been good at basketball when he was younger and may have been a teammate of Shep’s. Put these five characters together and you get a confusing story about the struggles of high school basketball, life on the streets, and escaping your past, all of which are resolved at the high school prom ... I mean city basketball tournament.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 1 basketball. I am not really sure why.... I am still trying to decipher what this movie was about.

Tournament seed: 13–15—movie hangs around with higher seed for the 1^st half, but the 2^nd half results in a blowout. Only advances in the tournament if matched up with an overrated team. Pick with caution.

I am not sure where to start/finish this review. The basketball action is believable, but I am pretty sure there is more to the game than just dunk after dunk after dunk. On the surface it looks like a promising movie, with a decent cast (Tupac, Bernie Mac) and loaded soundtrack (2Pac, Tha Dogg Pound). But neither end up impressing; “Regulate” by Warren G. and Nate Dogg plays during the credits, which seems like a waste. The movie opens with a creepy scene of two people playing basketball on a rooftop (Who does that???) and one of them falls off and dies, totally setting the movie up for the weirdness to follow. The movie just starts introducing characters quickly, and before you know it they all start connecting without really explaining why/how. Kyle is playing high school basketball and trying to impress a college scout one minute, and then the next he is deciding which team to play for in the city’s outdoor basketball tournament. Birdie is Shep’s younger brother, and he tries to recruit Kyle to play on his team. Shep is the guy that was on the rooftop that didn’t die, and he relives that night over and over again while shooting hoops by himself with no ball. Shep starts dating Kyle’s mom after they met and talked for about 2 minutes. Birdie kills Flip because ... I’m not sure. Shep plays 1-on-1 with Kyle to teach him a lesson/be a father figure? Birdie tries to blackmail Kyle by telling him that if he doesn’t lose the big game he will tell Georgetown University that Kyle took money from him. Of course, the final game comes down to Kyle’s team vs. Birdie’s team. Birdie’s team starts to intentionally hurt the opposing players, which leads to Shep showing up and playing with Kyle. Shep looks awesome in a sweet slow-motion finger-roll montage while wearing khaki pants. Shep and Kyle lead the team on a comeback, and trail by 1 point with 4 seconds left. Shep steals the ball and alley-oops to Kyle for the game-winning jam. Birdie doesn’t like that, so one of his boys shoots at Kyle, but Shep jumps in and takes the bullet. Before we can find out if Shep is dead, the movie jumps forward to Bugaloo shooting Birdie, and before we find out the fate of Bugaloo, the movie jumps forward to a TV showing Kyle hitting a game winning 3-point shot for Georgetown to win the conference championship. And then all our questions are answered (?) when the camera pans out and we see Kyle’s mom celebrating with Shep.

While you are trying to wrap your head around all that, picture everyone sporting a hi-top fade, every sentence containing fuckity fuck fucking fuck fucker, and people screaming “Get off me!” all the time. One thing I did find useful is that if you can’t shoot the j, learn how to carry a razor blade in your mouth. To sum it all up, this is a movie that tries to teach, but ends up making no sense; like this quote from Birdie:

Birdie: “There’s more to life to getting a shot than just hitting that jumper.”