Above the Rim |  | Director: Jeff Pollack
Actors: Duane Martin, León, Tupac Shakur, Leon, David Bailey
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.96
Buy New: $6.73
as of 3/18/2010 09:36 EDT details
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Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 10072
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
MPN: TM2505
ISBN: 0780641159
UPC: 794043613524
EAN: 9780780641150
ASIN: B00005JLG1
Theatrical Release Date: 1994
Release Date: June 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Classic DVD | | • | Exclusive interviews, highlights, and behind the scenes coverage | | • | DVD's main menu allow you to jump directly to the action | | • | Presented in full-screen digital video |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A hot prospect threatens his college career by playing in a high stakes street basketball tournament. Starring Duane Martin, Tupac Shakur and Marlon Wayans. Year: 1994 Director: Jeff Pollack Starring: Duane Martin Leon, Tupac Shakur, Marlon Wayans
Amazon.com
This rousing basketball drama centers around Tommy "Shep" Sheppard (Leon), a former high school basketball star now haunted by the accidental death of his best friend, and Kyle Watson (Duane Martin), an arrogant high school player in danger of slipping into crime. Though Shep avoids commitment in his life as a security guard, his attraction to Kyle's mother (Tonya Pinkins) draws him out of his protective shell--but Kyle is more interested in mentorship from Shep's gangster brother Birdie (Tupac Shakur). Above the Rim is melodramatic but played with grit and energy by a solid cast, particularly Shakur. Writer-director Jeff Pollack keeps the story moving and gives the characters enough spin to rescue them from being clichés; the result is engaging despite its formulas. Also featuring Bernie Mac and Marlon Wayans. --Bret Fetzer
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 58
 Above The Rim is very underrated January 22, 2010
G. H. D. lll (Plainfield, NJ)
Damn! what a movie its a great situation what do you do when your life is on the line and you have the talent to make it to the NBA. Kyle mess around with the wrong people and he was lucky to live to play at Georgetown. Tupac played a role in the movie and he did a very good job.
very happy April 26, 2009
amanda lenz (Cookeville, TN)
Product came quickly in the mail and in excellent condition. very happy with this movie
 Above the rim November 17, 2008
NEOSOUL06 (Atlanta, Ga.)
This was a good movie when it came out. I don't own it I just saw it back in the day so, I don't know why Amazon asks me to review it. Maybe they know I keep it real on the reviews. Anyway, it's a good movie, I'd pick it up if I were considering it. It's got 2 Pac in it and that dude Dwayne Martin. Enjoy...NEOSOUL06
 Kinda Generic October 4, 2006
David Foskin (Waterford, Ireland)
"Above the Rim" is about the city game of basketball, played on asphalt in a rough, physical style, where the rewards are status and glory in the neighborhood. It was shot on location in Harlem, and especially at Rucker's Playground, a legendary court where, in the 1970s, visiting stars like Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving would drop by to play with the local heroes.
The movie moves the action up to the present and tells the story of a high school basketball whiz named Kyle (Duane Martin) who has attracted the attention of top college scouts. A Georgetown recruiter has been in the stands for several games. Kyle dreams of someday playing in the NBA and waits anxiously for a letter of intent from Georgetown, which doesn't come - maybe because, in an attempt to impress the scout, he's been hogging the ball and taking unwise shots.
Parallel to high school basketball, but in a world of its own, is the neighborhood Shoot-Out, a tournament held at Rucker's Playground with teams sponsored by local merchants, including drug dealers. Kyle plans to play for a team run by his school coach. But then his best friend, Bugaloo (Marlon Wayans), talks him into visiting a club run by the sinister Birdie (Tupac Shakur), and the kid is seduced by its shabby glamor into agreeing to play for Birdie's team.
This is not a wise move. Birdie is a drug dealer, and that's a fact well-known to the tall, silent Shep (Leon), a former Rucker's star who moved out of town but is now back as a security guard at the high school. Shep was once friendly with Kyle's mother (Tonya Pinkins), and now, as they begin to see each other again, he tries to guide Kyle in the direction of college, and away from the superficial glories of the Shoot-Out.
The movie climaxes, of course, with the big Shoot-Out game, and with a violent surprise that I found less than likely. But that's not really what it's about. It's more about the dreams of poor black kids to use their basketball skills as a ticket out of the inner city.
This is an elusive dream, as the brilliant Chicago-based documentary "Hoop Dreams" demonstrates. Only a tiny percentage of high school stars ever play in college, let alone in the NBA. But kids like Kyle can't help hoping. And both Shep and his mother point out that education, not the NBA ticket, is the real reason to go to school.
The movie lives easily on the streets where it is shot, and the performances - especially by Martin, Shakur and Pinkins - are convincing. We get a sense of the daily rhythm of the character's lives, and for a drama, the movie finds room for a surprising amount of humor, especially in the dialogue.
The movie, directed by Jeff Pollack, was co-written by Pollack and Barry Michael Cooper, who wrote the poetic and evocative Wesley Snipes drama "Sugar Hill." In both films Cooper has a strong interest in family, in how extended support networks can fill some of the gaps left by the disintegration of the traditional family unit.
Here Kyle is a kid in a lot of potential trouble, but also with a lot of good support.
My complaint about the movie is that the plot goes on automatic pilot in creating the character of Birdie. The neighborhood drug dealer is such a standard cliche by now that it's almost as if they plugged him into the movie as a shortcut to a villain. Shakur plays him well, and he makes a satisfactory bad guy, but the subliminal message is that drugs are where the money is. The movie could have come up with more original choices.
no title March 30, 2006
C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Well, here's a movie I didn't want to see at all (I loathe basketball), but I enjoyed it very much. Two actors to watch who are very charismatic - Leon and Tupac Shakur (whose murder robbed the screen of a very fine talent). The former exudes a quiet power reminiscent of Lawrence Fishberne; the latter has amazing eyes with incredibly curly lashes. Another note: I haven't seen a movie that looked this sharp and clear, whose colors were crisp and bright, in many a year. And the basketball shots during the "tournament"! Wow! What editing! Whoever did that really knew his stuff. The story was fairly hokey - good guy, bad guy, competing for the young basketball whiz, and fairly predictable. I did think his overblown jealousy of his mom dating Leon a little too too. But Shakur's portrayal of the local king-pin was very effective. He actually seemed friendly and OK, but the menace below was subtly done. I have seen him before in "Poetic Justice".
Showing reviews 1-5 of 58
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