Above the Rim (1994)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Jeff Pollack

Writers (WGA):

Jeff Pollack (story) &
Benny Medina (story) ...

Release Date:

23 March 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Sport

Tagline:

The Hardest Part Of Winning Is Choosing Sides.

Plot:

Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with his two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.

Plot Keywords:

Basketball | High School | Drugs | Security Guard | Drug Dealer

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Duane Martin	...	Kyle Lee Watson
Leon	...	Shep
Tupac Shakur	...	Birdie
David Bailey	...	Rollins
Tonya Pinkins	...	Mailika
Marlon Wayans	...	Bugaloo
Bernie Mac	...	Flip
Byron Minns	...	Monroe
Wood Harris	...	Motaw (as Sherwin David Harris)
Shawn Michael Howard	...	Bobby
Henry Simmons	...	Starnes
Iris Little Thomas	...	Waitress
Michael Rispoli	...	Richie
Eric Nies	...	Montrose
Bill Rafferty	...	Himself (as Bill Raftery)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

USA:R (Certificate #32601) | Australia:MA | Germany:12 | Iceland:14 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | UK:15

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

New Line Cinema

Trivia:

At the start when Shep awakes from the nightmare, you hear the intro to Tupac Shakur's "Pain" - "I Couldn't help but notice your pain" - "My pain?" - "It runs deep, share it with me!". This voice-over is from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).

Goofs:

Continuity: During the final basketball game, when Shep makes a finger roll for a layup, his jersey and #15 are backwards.

Quotes:

Mailika: What about you? Where does your mind run to?
Shep: Nowhere. It's just stuck. It's the rest of me that does the running.
Mailika: That's too bad. Folks either move past the things that happen to them, or they stop moving at all. But you're young. You can do anything, except sing.
Shep: I can sing a little bit.
Mailika: Not even a little bit.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The 1995 Source Hip-Hop Music Awards (1995) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Old Times' Sake

Pollack direct s a fine time piece...

I had a few problems with this film. First of all, the entire B story with Sheppard was a little hokey. The tragic death of a best friend, and the best name the writers could think of was 'nutso'? Oh, and the dream sequence in the beginning I thought was really funny, in other words very poorly made. Those things aside, I enjoyed 'Above the Rim'. It was not a great movie, but it was an exceptional basketball movie, and a great time piece. Pollack captured the fashion and language of the mid-90's very well, and if nothing else this film will be fun to watch in twenty years as a reminder of what once was. Rating: 21/40