Starring: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Viola Davis, Julius Tennon, Damian Delano Young, Chris Tucker, Matthew Maher, Gustaf Skarsgaard, Jay Mohr, Joel Gretsch, Marlon Wayans
Distributor: Warner Bros
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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It’s 1984 and small sports shoe company Nike has high hopes from its sponsorship for emerging star, 18-year-old Michael Jordan.
A very American entertainment. And the response in the US has been overwhelmingly positive. The film will travel but it cannot evoke the same kind of response beyond the US because of its subject – the National Basketball Association, players and contracts, promotion, sponsorships, and a special focus on the shoes that the basketball players wear.
The year is 1984, with an initial collage evoking memories (but, anyone who was 10 at the time is now 50 – meaning that for younger audiences there is a touch of, if not ancient history, old history). We see and hear US President Ronald Reagan, Eddie Murphy as the Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters . . .
This is a true story, actual characters are named and portrayed, strengths and weaknesses, and, at the end, interesting information about their subsequent careers. And the setting is the shoe company, Nike, running third in 1984 to shoes made by Converse and the ever-growing Adidas. At Nike, there is a talent scout, Sonny Vaccaro (an excellent performance by the always reliable Damon). For 20 years Vaccaro has searched for the ideal player to sponsor and use to promote the company. Vaccaro sees a future for the 18-year-old Michael Jordan.
For not just American audiences, Jordan is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time.
In the film, Jordan himself appears in video clips, in the background when Sonny Vaccaro visits the Jordan home in North Carolina, in the background at a family meeting with Nike executives.
The film gives glimpses of basketball, but primarily it is about American capitalism, the world of business, the world of profit, deals, manoeuvres, pressures (and the touch of what might be called blackmail). It is a film about the American dream, the dreams of individuals being true to themselves, that success is the goal of life, perhaps a touch of the Protestant/Calvinist influence in the early centuries of US development, that God blesses those who are successful.
Air has a strong cast. Bateman is a Nike executive, careful, but eager, getting older. We get to know a little of his home life – visitation rights to his daughter a couple of hours every Sunday. This is in rather marked contrast with the other central characters who don’t seem to have any relationships or any life outside their work. Affleck, who directs the film effectively, appears as Nike CEO Phil Knight; Tucker is Howard White, Nike executive and smooth talking promoter; a cameo by Wayans as sports coach George Raveling who has a speech about Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’ as an inspiration for fighting for dreams. And, there is a powerful performance by Davis as Jordan’s mother, Deloris, who is shrewd, business savvy, and makes contract demands for her son to receive a percentage of every shoe sold with his name, Air Jordan. (Later information indicates that this was a cause that Vaccaro took up in later decades, and won.)
There is excitement all the time, as we follow Vaccaro and his plans, support, opposition, some hilariously crass interchanges with Jordan’s agent, David Falk (Messina), suspense concerning Jordan’s choice of Adidas or Nike.
And, there is a collage of Jordan’s later life, sport success, personal messiness in his life, yet his being considered one of the greatest American sports athletes.
Warner Bros
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