When the sports comedy The Air Up There hit theaters in January 1994, it combined two popular cinematic formulas of the era: fish-out-of-water comedy and inspirational sports drama. Starring Kevin Bacon as an ambitious college basketball coach who travels to Kenya to recruit a mysterious prodigy, the film became one of the more unusual basketball movies of the 1990s. While it was not a major critical success, the movie remains memorable for its exotic locations, real basketball talent, and a fascinating connection to the NBA.

Hollywood Goes to Kenya

The Air Up There was directed by Paul Michael Glaser—best known to television audiences as Detective Dave Starsky from Starsky & Hutch. Rumor has it (we started the rumor) he dressed up like Starsky while directing on set. The film followed Jimmy Dolan (Bacon), an assistant basketball coach desperate to prove himself. After seeing footage of a tall African player with extraordinary athletic ability, Dolan travels to Kenya hoping to recruit him for his fictional St. Joseph University team.

To capture an authentic atmosphere, much of the movie was filmed in Kenya and parts of South Africa, with additional scenes shot in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, standing in for the American college campus. The filmmakers wanted a genuine African setting and cast many local performers and athletes in supporting roles.

The production carried a modest Hollywood budget of about $17 million and ultimately grossed around $21 million at the box office. While critics often described the film as formulaic, audiences appreciated its blend of comedy, basketball action, and cross-cultural storytelling.

Teaching Kevin Bacon to Play Basketball

Although Bacon had already established himself as a versatile actor through films like Footloose and A Few Good Men, portraying a believable basketball coach presented a challenge. To improve the on-court realism, the production hired NBA legend Bob McAdoo as the film’s technical advisor.

McAdoo—an NBA MVP and five-time All-Star—worked closely with Bacon during filming to refine his shooting mechanics, dribbling, and overall movement on the court. According to McAdoo, one of the toughest tasks during production was simply making Bacon “perform like a real basketball player.” This was a common practice in sports movies of the era, where former professional athletes were often brought in to ensure the action scenes looked authentic.

One scene in particular caused problems for the production. The script originally called for Bacon’s character to demonstrate his basketball credibility by pulling off a flashy move during practice—essentially showing the African players that he still had some game.

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The move required Bacon to drive toward the basket and finish with a strong, athletic layup or dunk-style finish. For an NBA player, it would have been routine. For Bacon, it was a different story.

During rehearsals, Bacon reportedly admitted to the crew that he simply couldn’t perform the move convincingly enough for the camera. Despite training sessions with McAdoo, the combination of the stunt, the camera angles, and the need to repeat the play multiple times made the sequence awkward.

Rather than risk a scene that looked unrealistic—or potentially injure the film’s star—the production team made a quick adjustment. Instead of forcing Bacon to perform the difficult play himself, the crew used a combination of classic sports-movie tricks: camera angles that cut away before the difficult part of the move, body doubles for certain shots and editing that stitched together multiple takes to make the play look smooth. The final version of the scene looked perfectly believable to audiences, even though Bacon never actually completed the full move on camera.

The Real-Life Basketball Talent in the Cast

While Bacon’s character Coach Jimmy Dolan had fictional experience, several members of the cast had genuine basketball backgrounds. 

The film’s central character, Saleh, was played by Kenyan teenager Charles Gitonga Maina. Maina wasn’t a trained actor. Instead, he was discovered during an audition process searching for tall African basketball players who could realistically portray the role. Maina, who had previously won a Nairobi slam dunk competition and described himself as a “dunkaholic,” impressed director Glaser and was ultimately selected from dozens of candidates. His athleticism and natural personality helped anchor the film’s basketball sequences and gave the story a sense of authenticity.

Nigel Miguel, who played the character Halawi, was a former standout basketball player at UCLA. During his college career he earned All-Pac-10 honors and was named Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. In 1985, Miguel was selected in the third round of the NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets. He attended training camp and tried out for the team, but he was ultimately cut before the regular season began. Although his NBA dream never materialized, Miguel continued playing professionally in the Continental Basketball Association before injuries ended his playing career. He later transitioned to Hollywood, appearing in multiple basketball-themed films including White Men Can’t Jump and Blue Chips.

The Maasai Controversy

When audiences watched this film, many assumed the fictional African tribe portrayed in the movie was simply a Hollywood invention. In reality, the culture depicted in the film drew loose inspiration from a real East African ethnic group: the Maasai.

The Maasai people live primarily in Kenya and Tanzania and are known internationally for their distinctive red clothing, warrior traditions, and pastoral lifestyle centered around cattle herding. Their cultural identity is one of the most recognizable in East Africa, which made them a natural visual reference point for filmmakers trying to create an instantly identifiable African setting. However, the movie’s portrayal of African culture sparked some criticism both during and after its release.

The fictional tribe in The Air Up There—the home of the basketball prodigy Saleh—borrows several elements commonly associated with Maasai culture such as bright traditional clothing similar to Maasai shúkà garments, village structures resembling Maasai settlements, ceremonial traditions and tribal authority figures, and a rural pastoral setting with strong community ties. The film was not meant to depict the Maasai accurately. Instead, it blended elements from several East African cultures into a fictional tribe. The details helped create a vivid cinematic backdrop for the story of an underdog coach traveling to Africa to recruit a hidden basketball talent.

This approach led to critics in Kenya arguing that the film leaned too heavily on stereotypes about African villages and tribal life. Their main concerns revolved around the following:

Oversimplified Cultural Portrayal – The movie presented African society largely through a rural tribal lens, which critics said ignored the modern urban realities of Kenya.

Hollywood “Outsider Savior” Narrative – The plot centers on an American coach discovering and helping develop a talented African athlete. Some viewers felt this reinforced the trope of Western outsiders rescuing or validating non-Western talent.

Cultural Mixing – Elements of different ethnic groups were blended together for cinematic effect, which meant the portrayal did not accurately represent any specific Kenyan culture.

Despite those criticisms, the production did make efforts to involve local talent. The film’s breakout star, Charles Gitonga Maina, was a Kenyan teenager discovered during casting in Nairobi. Many extras and supporting performers were also local residents who appeared in village scenes and basketball sequences. Additionally, for some Kenyan viewers, seeing local landscapes and actors in a major Hollywood film was still a point of pride, even if the cultural portrayal was imperfect.

A Film That Predicted Basketball’s Global Future

Ironically, the central premise of The Air Up There—that extraordinary basketball talent might be found in Africa—turned out to be remarkably forward-thinking. Since the film’s release in 1994, African players have become major stars in the NBA, including Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria), Joel Embiid (Cameroon), and Pascal Siakam (Cameroon). The NBA has even launched the Basketball Africa League to help develop the sport across the continent. In this sense, the idea behind The Air Up There—an American coach traveling to Africa in search of undiscovered basketball talent—was actually decades ahead of its time.

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While The Air Up There never reached the cultural status of basketball classics like Hoosiers or White Men Can’t Jump, it occupies a distinctive place in sports movie history. Its combination of international locations, real basketball talent, and a storyline about global scouting foreshadowed how basketball would become increasingly international in the decades that followed. FreeSportsMagazine.com recommends you give it a watch!