Above the Rim, watched right this time — 7 McDonald's All Americans out of 10
I've technically seen Above the Rim before, but I'm not sure it counts. It came out when I was too little for it, and by the time I caught it as a teenager I wasn't paying real attention. I came away with a couple of images and Tupac's face and basically no plot. So watching it again as a grown man was less a rewatch and more meeting the movie for the first time, which is its own small pleasure.
Here's the surprise: the story I never actually absorbed holds up.
#The bones of it are good
Strip away the era and what's underneath is a clean, real story. You've got Kyle, the cocky high school star with the NBA in his eyes, getting tugged between the game that could save him and the street that's right there offering faster money. You've got Shep, a playground legend who walked away from the sport after a friend died, working security and trying to stay invisible. And you've got Birdie pulling all the strings, who happens to be Shep's little brother, which is the knot the whole thing tightens around.
I'll spoil it since the movie's older than most of the people who'll read this: it lands where you'd want it to. Shep finds his way back onto the court, Kyle picks the right road, Birdie's hustle finally catches up with him. None of that is a twist. It doesn't need to be. The pull between the two brothers is the engine, and it still runs.
#Tupac is the reason it sticks
Birdie could've been a cardboard villain, the drug dealer who exists so the hero has somebody to beat. Tupac doesn't play him that way. He's charming right up until he isn't, the kind of dangerous where you understand exactly why people follow him before you remember why you shouldn't. He's having a good time on screen and it's magnetic. You spend half the movie almost liking him, and that's the trick, because it makes the corner he backs Kyle into actually scary instead of just plot.
It's strange to watch now, knowing what was coming for him not long after. The screen presence was clearly real, and there's a what-if hanging over the whole thing that the movie itself couldn't have known about.
#The 90s of it
I won't pretend it's timeless. It looks and sounds like exactly when it was made. The film stock, the fashion, the cadence of how everybody talks, all of it is stamped 1994. Some of the dialogue lands a beat slower or louder than a movie would play it today.
But here's the thing about that. The 90s feel isn't a flaw, it's just the accent it speaks in. Once your ear adjusts, the story doesn't lean on the era to work. It would survive a remake, and most movies you can say that about are better than their reputation.
#The verdict
Seven McDonald's All Americans out of 10. It's not reinventing anything and it's not trying to. It's a solid, well-built sports drama with a story that holds and one performance that walks off with the whole thing. If you missed it, or like me you "saw it" without really seeing it, it's worth an honest sit-down. Just don't expect it to hide its birthday.