Un joueur à la hauteur

Kenya -1990s. St Joe's basketball team is famous but runs into a double crisis. For one, the acclaimed coach is going to retire and must name his successor. Moreover, the team is in dire need of a hoop star. Jimmy Dolan, ex-player and deputy coach, has therefore no choice but to find the star: his career is at stake. On a short video of a mission in Winabi (Kenya), he sees the star he needs. How to get there, to identify the player and to convince him to go back to the USA with him will however be quite a challenge! The spectator should not expect anything remotely intellectual or an even slightly probable description of Africa. But Kevin Bacon is good and the movie hilarious at times. A very entertaining, light movie, which beyond the classical story of friendship between two young men of different cultures (for once not too patronizing), shows quite interesting scenes of beautiful basketball and demonstrates a bit the incredible cult Americans make of sports in the environment of what is supposed to be tertiary education.

When college basketball coach Jimmy Dolan loses the hottest new recruit by beating him in a game of one on one and damaging his pride he loses his job and looks for a way to get back. He sees a brilliant African player on a home movie and travels to Kenya to recruit him. However Saleh is the Chief's son and has his own problems as a mining company is trying to get control of the tribe's land.

Bacon is not really a lead actor but someone who can give a good performance in co-lead or support. Here he has a film to carry on his own and struggles with it. Mainly it's due to the formulaic nature of the plot – lets be honest, even from the plot outline above I bet you could guess how's it going to end. However that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable – just not very good. It has plenty of nice laughs and the basketball action is fun and will directed if not realistic.

Despite the formula the cast mainly do quite well, but really it never manages to get above the sort of formulaic sports comedy that we see so often. However it is entertaining and I did enjoy just switching off my brain and letting it go in one ear and out the other.

Instantly forgettable and very by the numbers but some good laughs, good locations and good basketball action make it an entertaining enough film to just veg out in front of. Not great but passable.

I just watched this movie again, and I still love it from when I was a kid. (I know everyone loves some stinkers when they're kids, but bear with me.) This movie was as entertaining now as it was back then.

I know the plot can be predicted almost to the detail, but if that doesn't immediately and absolutely put you off it, it's a real treat. The acting and script are sincere, but even more so, the whole movie just has an innocent sincerity to it that's actually a rare find (even in a kids' movie). If this movie were a romance, it wouldn't hold up at all with this kind of sentimentality, but in a fun movie that's (technically) a sports drama, it really lends something to the whole affair that can put you in a good mood every time you watch it.

I'm sure part of this is Maina's performance, which is so sweet you can't help but like it -- this is coming from a usually-cynical moviegoer who dislikes "sappy" movies.

All in all, it's a charmer.

Kevin Bacon stars in "The Air Up There," a family "comedy" that is nothing more than a few familiar faces and half-hearted laughs. It's another feel-good underdog story of which is not particularly memorable.

Kudos to Bacon for turning a pretty routine script into a watchable, even amusing movie with some OK moments and likable characters. Not as good as "Cool Runnings," but still worth catching if it's on Sunday afternoon or something.

3/5

Not great, but good.

Kevin Bacon totally dominates this film. In fact, he's the only "name" actor in it. You won't recognize anybody else in here.

The story is lightweight entertainment with the most notable aspect being the African music, which is very good and a small tour of Kenya, which is interesting, both with beauty and poverty.

Bacon plays as basketball assistant coach, an ex-point guard, who goes to Africa to recruit this great player "Saleh" (Charles Gitangra Marina) for his team back in the States. The adventures of the trip pretty much are the story.

One negative: another irreverent slam to get a few cheap laughs at the Catholic church. A nun in here uses profanity and gives Bacon a big kiss on the lips. It's one more example of trying to make clerical people appear worldly like the rest of us.