Based on real life events, “Air” follows the story of Nike Basketball recruiter Sonny Vaccaro and his dream of saving the company by getting the hottest young rookie: Michael Jordan.
I am a sucker for sports movies based on real events; it is kind of like a guilty pleasure. This movie had so much hype around it because it was another directorial piece from Ben Affleck starring him and his childhood besties Matt Damon. I feel like a lot of people like to “dunk” on them (haha, get it?) whenever they team up together, but they are always a fun duo for me to watch. And this movie is no different.
The one thing that stood out about this movie was the pacing. The movie is almost two hours but it does not feel like that when you are engaged with it. The quick storylines and the tight scenes really make it feel like you are in and out but still able to absorb a lot of what happened. There was not a lot of fluff in between scenes; we went from one scene smoothly into the next one for the entirety of the movie. For those who are just looking for the information on how the shoes of Air Jordan came to be and learn a little bit about Nike as a company, this is the movie for them. It is not as interesting as “Moneyball”, which I can see this movie getting compared to a lot, but it definitely appeals to that type of crowd. The pacing was what made this movie enjoyable, along with some witty dialog and a fun premise. The screenplay is nothing to write home about — it is very standard for this kind of movie — but that along with the pacing work perfectly hand-in-hand with one another.
The performances of the movie are enjoyable as well. Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro is the heart and driving force of the film and Damon puts his heart into it. This may come off as a simple role for someone like Damon but he does not take it lightly and brings everything to this real life character. Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Chris Tucker and Matthew Maher are all fun and bring energy to their respective roles at the different heads of the Nike Basketball division and also want you to feel something from them. But the standout has to be Viola Davis as Michael Jordan’s mother Deloris Jordan. She brings the intensity and motherly love that Michael Jordan himself always talked about in speeches. You know that she cares about how her son is going to do in his professional career but also backs him 100% because she knows his worth. She shows strong determination to get her son what she wants without seemingly like an overbearing or too overprotective parent. There is believing in your son and then there’s knowing what your son is worth and Davis excellently shows us that difference through her performance.
Looking back at Affleck’s directorial filmography, this is the only film of his that I have seen all the way through, so this was my first real experience with his work as a director. I do not have much to say about how it stood out or did not stand out. There were a few long one shots that I liked but nothing that really made him different than from what I was expecting to see from this type of film. The major issue I had with it was that at the beginning there were a lot of shots of “remember the 80s” with how many ads were playing and how many random shots in a gas station store there were to help bring that time period to the forefront. There is not wrong with trying to set up your scene, especially as someone who did not live during this time period, but all the shots that just seemed to be there to have 80s nostalgia took me out of certain scenes and made it harder to get into the film at the beginning. But I did really like how even though Damon was the main character of the movie, Affleck decided to focus more on the collaborative effort of the team at Nike rather than just the one person who was the “head” of it. I also liked the idea of never showing Michael Jordan’s face. It was an interesting creative choice to make sure that the image of Jordan is only Jordan himself. Affleck knew that only Jordan could play Jordan and since he is now about 40 years older, it would not really work out. But it was different and the story was more on the creation of the shoe and his mother making sure he was fairly compensated for the work, so I give credit to Affleck for leaving Jordan a little bit of a mystery.
Overall, this is a simple sports movie with good pacing but nothing new being added to this genre of film. Check it out if you have Amazon Prime as it is an easy crowd-pleaser with laughs and heart for all.
