Directed By Ben Affleck

Starring – Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman

The Plot – Follows the history of shoe salesman Sonny Vaccaro (Damon), and how he led Nike in its pursuit of the greatest athlete in the history of basketball: Michael Jordan.

Rated R for adult language throughout

AIR | Official Trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

By contemporary culture, it seems almost impossible to think that there was ever a time when Nike didn’t rule the roost for reputation and shoe sales, but Affleck’s period piece transports us to a time of grave uncertainty and humility for the iconic brand, and one that because of the care and concern that he has for telling the story invokes a great balance of heart and importance for what is undoubtedly the single biggest sports signing of all time. Visually, Affleck’s work is impeccable, seamlessly capturing the essence and cultural familiarity of 1984 with an extensive element of production design that not only reaches impressive levels of detail with product labels that were primarily unique for the time, but also gives the film a lived-in level of believability based on the unshakeable consciousness of its consistency, and with the use of subtly weathered cinematography schemes from the great Robert Richardson, as well as archive footage of commercials, movies and programs of the time to initially convey visual context for the day and age without downright telling us in on-screen text. The other side of the film’s deep-rooted prominence is in the terrific script from Alex Convery, who paints an air of urgency and overwhelming vulnerability for Nike that seamlessly transcribes many stakes and circumstances to a story that many already know the outcome to. Alex manages this by certainly painting a bleak and disparaging environment to which a majority of the film takes place from, but also in the nuances and development of his many colorful characters, with the relationships and chemistry between them feeling enhanced by the kind of free-flowing and engaging brand of dialogue that Aaron Sorkin has made a career off of. This allows us to pick up on quirks and nuances with the characters that sometimes aren’t afforded to them in a minimization of time allowance, in turn harvesting much of the appeal and magnetism that each of them effortlessly exubberates with the kind of twisted humor that you wouldn’t expect in a typical sports biopic. Because of such, the performances are off the charts from everyone involved, and while the committed work of the ensemble doesn’t lend itself to the kind of transformations that can be visually experienced from the likenesses of their real-life counterparts, except for maybe Affleck and Viola Davis, the characters are none the less compelling by the layers and dimensions that each of these leads submit to them. For Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro particularly, we acknowledge the exhaustion from a business that is constantly knocking him down, with Matt’s versatility to convey overwhelming odds coming into play once more, but similar to his work in “Ford V Ferrari”, there’s an overwhelming humanity and humility to his portrayal that makes him easy to engage and invest in, and when balanced with the way he bounces off of these many eclectically vibrant personalities, proves he doesn’t have to do it alone. That sentiment can’t be felt any louder than Messina playing the agent of Michael Jordan with his familiar arrogance and ignorance that afford him the option to casually chew as much scenery as the film is willing to throw at him, with many effective punchlines from his carelessly reckless behavior emitting the slimy seediness of agents everywhere.

NEGATIVES

Truthfully, there’s very little to scoff at with “Air” that even momentarily takes away from the consistency of its good times and compelling storytelling, but even with as many aforementioned benefits to its appeal, there were still two matters that rubbed me the wrong way with its execution. The first and only briefly nagging element was the execution of Michael Jordan himself, played by an essentially faceless actor who never gets a chance to shine in what is arguably the biggest role of the movie. I can easily interpret that Affleck’s decision to conceal his identity plays towards the majestic ambiance of the generational athlete, especially in the way that other characters in the film engage with him, but for my money it becomes a bit distracting in the same way that Wilson did during the TV show “Home Improvement”, with forceful manners of obscuring his identity taking away a bit too much focus from the unraveling narratives of the scenes he accommodated. It would be a difficult role for anyone to undertake M.J, but leaving him essentially as this muted figure during negotiations that are entirely about his future feels slightly irresponsible, and honestly I wish they would’ve just left him out of the movie entirely if this is the best we get. In addition to this, the bigger problem that I have pertains to the closing out of its ending, which not only feels prolonged for what is arguably as much as ten minutes longer than it rightfully should’ve been, but oddly enough also feels abridged a bit, after introducing a late act conflict in the contract negotations, which could’ve used further fleshing out. Because 90% of this film is impeccably told with factual accuracy and razor sharp pacing, the last fifteen minutes of it feel a bit clumsy by comparison, and soon its 107 minute run time feels like the primary issue towards two contradicting directions of storytelling that left me a bit unsatisfied by its tug-of-war.

OVERALL
“Air” is a welcome fresh breath to the sports biopic that has been dulled and dominated by paralyzing conventionalism of recent efforts. Affleck and Convery are a perfect fit, emulating a stimulating style and bold deconstruction of brand idealism between them that values observations as much as it does insight, cementing a cinematic slam dunk with a valuable starting line-up that moves at the pace of a real contender.

My Grade: 8/10 or A-