With all due respect to Larry, Magic, LeBron and the rest of their elite NBA counterparts, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. Air, the story of how Nike convinced his Airness to sign with them rather than industry powerhouses Converse and Adidas, is not the cinematic equivalent of its legendary subject.
Nonetheless, as a film about the relationship between risk and reward, work and self, and personal and professional value, it’s a rousing underdog saga that—like Ben Affleck’s prior directorial efforts Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo—has the type of snappy energy and charm that should earn it a long post-theatrical shelf life.
The American Dream is alive and well in Air (in theaters April 5), which—courtesy of an expertly edited opening montage scored to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”—situates itself in a 1984 marked by Ghostbusters, Run-DMC, “Where’s the Beef?”, and the Lakers and Celtics renewing their rivalry in the NBA Finals, while wearing the shortest shorts this side of a Nair commercial.
In this era of fierce bottom line-driven competition, Nike is the also-ran of the sneaker business, claiming only 19 percent market share based largely on its popular running shoes. That leaves the company’s basketball scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) in a precarious spot, tasked with extending the brand’s reach into an arena where it’s viewed as bland, unimaginative and—worst of all for its fortunes with young consumers—uncool.
Vaccaro’s office is Nike’s tape archive, and he spends his days and nights learning as much as he can about the hardcourt prospects that might make good Nike clients. He’s both a student and a gambler, as evidenced by the fact that he’s introduced flying from a high school game to Las Vegas for a few hours of placing big bets at the tables. Unfortunately for Vaccaro, though, under the stewardship of founder and CEO Phil Knight (Affleck), Nike has gone conservative when it comes to expanding its basketball footprint, agreeing to commit merely $250,000 to three players from the ’84 draft class—an approach that’s as limited as is his colleagues’ expertise about the game and its budding stars.
Vaccaro needs a bright idea to save his job and, with it, Nike’s basketball-sneaker division, and he finds it while rewatching the clip of University of North Carolina freshman Michael Jordan hitting the jump shot to win the 1982 NCAA Championship. In this one moment, guru-wizard-genius Vaccaro astutely appreciates Jordan as a poised, confident once-in-a-generation talent, and decides that he’s the key to Nike’s basketball destiny.
The problem, however, is that Jordan has his heart set on Adidas—the reigning brand in town, thanks to its tracksuits, all-leather high-tops and hip-hop ties—and he has no interest in listening to a potential Nike offer even if it matches its rivals, which Jordan’s super-agent David Falk (Chris Messina) disdainfully doubts is possible.
Everywhere he turns, Vaccaro faces skepticism that Jordan is an attainable White Whale, be it from marketing head honcho Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), VP of player relations Howard White (Chris Tucker), sneaker design maestro Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) or Knight, whom Affleck embodies as a bigwig with a fondness for Buddhist aphorisms, a habit of going barefoot around the office, and a heart caught between kowtowing to the company’s board and embracing the freewheeling spirit upon which Nike was built.
Still, Vaccaro is undeterred, and before long he’s circumnavigating Falk to directly visit Jordan’s father James (Julius Tennon) and mother Deloris (Viola Davis), delivering a pitch that’s focused less on money than on his belief in their son’s impending greatness and his own desire to make that the centerpiece of a campaign.
Air is a kindred spirit to AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, insofar as both are tales about ’80s visionaries who see the paradigm-shifting future on the horizon and strive to make those around them perceive it as well—at great peril to themselves and others. Vaccaro is the first to identify Jordan’s unmatched promise and, just as crucially, to understand the capitalistic importance of blurring the line between man and merchandise until the two are indistinguishable from one another.
That breakthrough is wedded in the film to Deloris’ conviction that everyone’s worth should be properly recognized—something that holds true in business and, also, in art, as reflected by the fact that Air was produced by Affleck and Damon’s Artists Equity, which provides crewmembers with a commensurate stake in a movie’s profits.
Air’s outcome isn’t a mystery, but Alex Convery’s script is a snappy and boisterous contraption that hits every one of its feel-good buttons, defining its characters through heartfelt speeches and witty banter—highlighted by a hilarious Falk phone-call rant that allows Messina to practically steal the show. A pudgy Damon turns Vaccaro into a Little Engine That Could who’s easy to root for. Davis, Bateman and Tucker—as well as Marlon Wayans as George Raveling, recounting how he obtained Martin Luther King Jr’s copy of his “I Have a Dream” speech—make for charismatic and colorful supporting players who each receive a few scenes in the spotlight.
All the while, Affleck the director (working with ace cinematographer Robert Richardson) keeps things agile and animated, employing a combination of fleet camera movements, circular pans, intimate close-ups and a soundtrack of ’80s hits from the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon and Violent Femmes.
Jordan himself is portrayed by an actor whose back remains turned to the audience throughout; the actual Chicago Bulls icon is seen solely in non-fiction footage. It’s a shrewd decision by Affleck, given that Air only has time to craft one mythology—namely, that of American free-market enterprise and innovation, via men and women (in both the Nike and Jordan camps) who united in racial and class solidarity to revolutionize the role and power of the dreamers, the seers and the high-rollers.
Ripped from recent history books, it’s a nostalgic fable about the nation’s enduring capitalist spirit, and the ability of individuals to harness it for the better. No matter how many accolades it nets, it’s a winner.
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