AS the opening title cards flash across the screen with all the production companies – including Artists Equity, the studio recently founded by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – we hear the audio from an old commercial for MTV, followed by a rapid-fire montage that immediately situates us in the 1980s – 1984 to be more precise.
It’s a boom time for capitalism, as the United States rides a wave of Reagan era optimism. However, things are not going so well for Nike’s basketball division, and for the sport of basketball in general, as it pales in popularity to other American sports.
To reach the next level, it needs a superstar, and for Nike marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro (Damon), that person is Michael Jordan. He believes that if Nike signs him to a sponsorship deal, the company’s fortunes will rise alongside Jordan’s as they will be inextricably linked.
To do this Vaccaro has to convince his boss, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight (a very funny Affleck), his co-workers Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman doing Jason Bateman things) and Howard White (Chris Tucker doing Chris Tucker things), Jordan’s agent David Falk (a scenery chewing Chris Messina), and Jordan’s mother Deloris (an equally warm and stern Viola Davis).
Meanwhile, executives at rival sneaker companies Adidas and Converse are also working on their own deals to woo Jordan, though they don’t really get any focus in the movie beyond some jokes.
In many ways this is the kind of movie Hollywood used to crank out by the dozen every year – star driven ensemble comedy dramas that had no franchise aspirations. This is the kind of movie that Affleck and Damon grew up on and want to bring back with their new company.
For a movie that takes place primarily in offices and boardrooms, Air is plenty entertaining, with a snappy expletive-laden screenplay by first-time screenwriter Alex Convery. At times it can come across as too ‘writer-ly’ when characters go into their dramatic monologues, but the actors are all game so it works in the moment.
As Vaccaro, Damon is in the middle aged dad bod zone – a far departure from Jason Bourne. But as one of the last few major movie stars, he carries the movie effortlessly and is supremely comfortable with the rat-a-tat dialogue. It’s also always fun whenever he shares the screen with Affleck, who imbues Knight with a prickly charm.
Air’s biggest issue is its central premise, all this talent and money is assembled to make a movie about a shoe? For the most part it avoids being a commercial for Nike, one of the most recognisable brands in the world, but it does feel like an advertisement for Jordan as a brand.
How the movie handles Michael Jordan the person is fairly odd. He’s in several scenes, but always off to the side so we don’t see his face. He also never talks, with his parents doing all the talking for him. It’s like something out of the classic film Ben Hur, where Jesus is a character but we never see him and he never talks.
It all comes to inadvertently make Jordan into some kind of a saint, which he was not. He was a supremely talented basketball player – probably still the best in history. But there’s something odd about the movie celebrating the triumph of personal branding, while the man at the heart of it doesn’t exist as a person.
That being said, clocking in at a little under two hours, Air is still a good time at the movies if you just want to see movie stars trade witty barbs, while being hit by wall-to-wall 80s tunes (perhaps one needle drop too many). And for fans of basketball and Nike there are a lot of references and jokes that will probably elevate the experience. – The Vibes, April 8, 2023
