Swoosh!
Bros Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are back together and doing that thing they do that’s really, really hard to resist.
AIR
Director: Ben Affleck • Writer: Alex Convery
Starring: Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Julius Tennon, Matthew Maher, Marlon Wayans
USA • 1hr 52mins
Opens Hong Kong April 5 • IIB
Grade: B+
First off, Air is not a basketball movie. Second, whether or not you’re part of the “Michael Jordan is the GOAT” camp or the “LeBron James is the GOAT” camp, the fact of the matter is if it weren’t for Jordan’s game-changing (no pun intended) endorsement deal with Nike and his branded Air Jordan shoes, King James would be about half as wealthy as he is. Jordan’s landmark deal forced product manufacturers, corporate America and team owners (ahem) to acknowledge audiences didn’t pay to watch board meetings and stock calls. They paid to watch superstar athletes (HBO’s stellar Winning Time addressed this a bit) play sports ball stuff.
In that light it’s entirely unsurprising the Good Will Hunting Wonder Twins chose the story of the Jordan-Nike profit-sharing agreement to reunite for. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, bungling as they can be, usually have their hearts in the right place, and Air is the first film from the duo’s potentially disruptive Artists Equity production house, which has a mandate to share profits with all stakeholders – from above the line talent to editors – and get all the people who make our movies paid what they’re worth. Kind of like how Jordan’s parents, Deloris and James (supposedly at the real Jordan’s request, Viola Davis, and Julius Tennon) demanded Nike compensate their son for the value he would be adding to the NBA (understatement) if they wanted his endorsement. Air follows the resulting bidding war for the rookie’s services, and Nike development exec Sonny Vaccaro’s (Damon) winding, sneaky, desperate road to sign the future superstar.
Viola Davis Viola Davising
Heaving with ’80s needle drops and teeming with visual references to neon, acid wash and those Adidas track suits that were just about the most unflattering fuckin’ things ever produced and possibly a crime against humanity, Air starts in 1984, with Nike’s basketball division marketshare lagging behind rivals Adidas and Converse. Yes, Air would have us believe Nike is an underdog. Anyway, Vaccaro sits in on a meeting where management is trying to choose an NBA rookie – the draft that year included Akeem Olajuwon, John Stockton and Charles Barkley – or three, to spend its meagre budget on. Marketing executive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) likes Stockton, some other dude likes Melvin Turpin (who?), but Vaccaro insists they put all their eggs in the Jordan basket – even though Jordan, his mother and his influential agent, David Falk (Chris Messina, Argo) have made it clear they’re not interested in Nike. Let the games begin.
Affleck demonstrated incredible storytelling instincts from minute one of his directing career; Gone Baby Gone, a domestic drama-thriller, and the heist pic The Town are nearly ideal mixes of theme, spatial veracity, character and narrative momentum. That skill came to a head in the Oscar-winning Argo (though Affleck didn’t get a directing nomination) and it’s at its most full-throated in Air. This is a movie about behemoth business entities fighting each other for control of a young man’s image. Damon’s presence recalls Ford v Ferrari, and the corporate explainer bits recall The Big Short, but first-time (!) writer Alex Convery’s snappy script (Aaron Sorkin is obviously a role model) works best when Vaccaro, Strasser, shoe designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) and later Jordan brand honcho Howard White (Chris Tucker, neither screeching nor obnoxious) are talking shop, and when Vaccaro faces off with Nike boss Phil Knight (Affleck), bracing for faux Buddhist aphorisms and subtle jabs at his weight (“Do you run, Sonny?”) from the flaky new-ager.
Air’s most effective creative choice is leaving Michael Jordan himself out of the story. He’s seen from behind, from a distance; he never speaks. Whether intended or not, Jordan’s absence only amplifies his status as a commodity to be exploited, and it makes Deloris’s demands that a huge corporation with a fat bottom line – which is about to get fatter thanks to her son – pay a young Black man what he’s worth, and they paid it, utterly revolutionary (the deal still earns Jordan millions each year). Air also hints at the tension of Vaccaro and Knight trying to operate within the framework of Nike’s enlightened corporate ethos, which is posted on the office walls and ironically includes the statement, “Do what’s right and the money will follow.” Yeah, straight from an Indonesian sweatshop (a scandal years down the road). Vaccaro’s regular chats with the local cashier he buys Sports Illustrated from, a passing line about going public too soon and Nike’s new, demanding board bring the money-mad 1980s into relief. It’s an efficient way to contextualise the agreement.
Affleck wrestles all these parts into a cohesive, sprightly paced whole, and while not great in its entirety it has enough flashes of greatness in it to make it a satisfying, entertaining watch. Alert the media, two of those flashes involve the honest heart-to-hearts between Sonny and Deloris, shot in tight close up and feeling more intimate and more real than almost any other. Damon and Davis are a curious on-screen pair. He’s always been an expressive actor, creating his character in his face where Davis speaks volumes with her silences. The combination works in Air. The other flashes come when Vaccaro confronts the potential wreckage failure to sign Jordan would bring, a cringe-worthy boardroom presentation, and from Messina tearing it up as Falk, culminating in a hilariously foul-mouthed tirade directed at Sonny after he goes behind Falk’s back to speak with the Jordans. It’s as blustery and histrionic as Davis is modulated. There’s a Jerry Maguire vibe happening, but it’s also reminiscent of Robert De Niro’s pissed off bounty hunter calling his bail bonds boss in Midnight Run. Is there artistic license in Air? Is the Pope Catholic? Affleck and Convery play plenty fast and loose with history (though, kudos for making Knight into a nob), but in painting in broad strokes they get the little details right. Still not a basketball movie. — DEK