Ben Affleck’s movie Air is a commercial. A commercial for Nike, for their Air Jordan line, and maybe most of all for Michael Jordan himself (it’s not his first feature-length ad). And yet it’s a terrifically well-written commercial -nicely performed too- and with a level of sharp directorial prowess that has been forgotten in the seven years since Affleck last stepped behind the camera. There’s a conversation to be had about a movie that is so tied in to corporate product, so built around the importance of a brand and its history, and whether such a thing constitutes a devaluing of the art to mere company propaganda. But the task of a movie like this in regards to all that baggage is to justify itself as a film worth making, a story worth telling anyway. And Air, primarily in its concerted elevation of boring subject matter, makes a pretty strong case for itself.
It helps that Air is written and cast in a way that makes its talk of branding and marketing accessible -not unlike movies like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short, though without the necessity to explain things directly to the audience. In fact, writer Alex Convery adapts the language of corporate boardrooms naturally, infusing in nice touches of character that are richly delivered on. The principal figure is Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), Nike’s basketball talent scout -a somewhat nebulously understood job that mostly consists of him going to campuses in the hopes of recruiting future basketball stars for promotional relationships. When it comes to footwear the endorsement of a major athlete means the world to a company, and Nike here in 1984 is struggling next to giants like Adidas and Converse (which Nike would eventually acquire in 2003). Vaccaro soon comes to an epiphany that they need to court rising talent Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls, convinced off of his highlight footage that he is a future sports mega-star -and further that they should design a line explicitly around Jordan’s brand identity. It’s an uphill battle for the underdog company that Jordan specifically dislikes, but Vaccaro is determined to see the deal reached.
The novelty of this movie showing a different side of the sports industry than is usual for film, the world of marketing, is a major point of interest here -regardless of how neutrally and uncritically it is examined. There’s curious insight into how that world operates, but more-so Convery relates a certain thrill in seeing a bunch of charismatic people who are very good at their jobs and working from a place of disadvantage to achieve a monumental goal. It may just be a cross-promotional shoe sponsorship, but the cast really sell the weight and the stakes of it, and it’s all almost purely bent off of Vaccaro’s vision. It’s one of those movies that can be pointed to as a metaphor for the filmmaking process, all these creative and talented people, from the director analogue Vaccaro to the producer in Affleck’s company CEO Phil Knight, a screenwriter in Matthew Maher’s Peter Moore, who designs the shoe itself –all of whom work together, even if sometimes with resistance or a clash of ideas and personalities, to produce a particular desired result.
What stands out are those personalities and how they gel together. Not a whole lot is actually put into the characters here; most of them are just playing variations on their standard screen identities. Jason Bateman is sarcastic and deadpan, Chris Tucker is frenetic and bombastic –speaking at a mile a minute, and Damon is in that standard likeable yet slightly wise-ass American everyman mode he’s been playing a lot through his middle-age. Even Affleck brings some of his own temperament out amidst Phil Knight’s fitness regimen and Zen pontificating. But Affleck understands that that is enough, especially in conjunction with Convery’s dialogue which is pitched so well to these actors. There are multiple telephone scenes between Damon and Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk that wouldn’t be nearly so entertaining if different actors were aggressively negotiating in their place. Viola Davis is of course a standout of the cast as Jordan’s mother Deloris, who becomes a primary broker between him and Nike. She was handpicked for the role by Jordan himself, one of the few notes of his direct involvement, and takes to the part exceptionally well. Additionally, Marlon Wayans is great in the small role of a coach who vouches for Jordan’s extraordinary talents, and Maher, solidly now one of the industry’s best character actors, steals each of his scenes.
Jordan himself is never seen, even when he is in the room with the other characters his face is conspicuously hidden, symbolically placing him on another plane above everyone else. It’s as though depicting him is some act of sacrilege –no actor can measure up. Especially in the final conference room scene it does feel that the movie is too much in reverence of Jordan. One of the bits that doesn’t work is a climactic speech Vaccaro gives to him about his destiny for greatness, juxtaposed against a montage of footage from throughout his subsequent career. It’s a sales pitch, but Affleck really does imbue it with a kind of religiosity: Jordan is basketball’s expectant saviour and Vaccaro a prophet. But, as a sales pitch, this strain of highfalutin analogue never feels ingenuous, the deifying of Jordan, one of the greatest athletes though he may be, comes across as so hyperbolic -especially for this moment in time. It both stretches the story’s otherwise modest believability and makes the film out to be ultimately this puff piece -as much as its makers may deny the scope of Jordan’s direct influence.
But where Jordan and his premature cult of personality are absent the movie is incredibly solid. Affleck’s direction doesn’t come with much flare, but he understands well where to employ a sharp series of rotating shots or jump cuts –even if he does overdue it a tad on close-ups. The soundtrack is full of time-appropriate early 80s hits functioning as the primary era signifier –albeit a bit arbitrarily so (I don’t know why they went with “Time After Time” to underscore a montage of anxiety). In some respects, the movie makes a lot of the easiest choices in it’s approach to the story it is telling. But it does so very skillfully. Though the price tag was higher and the production more slick, Air has that distinct flavour of the mid-budget adult drama that was once a major force in Hollywood and that many modern critics and movie fans have bemoaned the loss of in recent years. So maybe it just gets a pass for being refreshing. At the same time though there is something to be said for a movie that is, make no mistake, about a product placement deal, managing to be both authentically resonant and creatively captivating.
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