Review: Air, the true story of the world's greatest... shoe?

April 5, 2023

He spoke with director Ben Affleck and some of the stars about the sports drama. (Source: Breakfast)

Oscar winner Ben Affleck is back in the director's chair and this time, he's brought his ol' pal Matt Damon.

It's 1984. Nike is the laughing stock of the basketball shoe industry. Each year they struggle to find players to wear their shoes on the court, while all the big players go with Adidas or Converse.

Sonny Vaccaro, Nike's basketball expert, pitches to the team that rather than spread themselves across half a dozen unnotable players, they put all their eggs in one basket and spend the entire budget trying to court a single rookie, Michael Jordan.

In 1984 Jordan was just beginning his career. Some people like Sonny and Jordan's mother could see the potential he had but he wasn't quite at the level of being one of the greatest athletes of all time just yet.

With the reluctant backing of the higher ups at Nike, Vaccaro attempts to win over the Jordan family, first having to impress the matriarch, played by Viola Davis.

All of this culminates in the creation of one of the most popular shoes of all time, the Air Jordan.

Despite being the centrepiece of the film, Michael Jordan doesn't really have a physical presence. There is an actor portraying him but you never see his face.

In interviews Ben Affleck has stated that this was a conscious decision to leave him out, since as soon as you cast someone and tell the audience this is supposed to be Michael Jordan, they're immediately going to reply "that's not Michael Jordan".

Affleck stars as Nike chief executive Phil Knight as well as this being his first directorial effort since 2016.

He assembled an all star cast including Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker and Viola Davis.

The inclusion of Davis was one of few requests by Michael Jordan about the film. Affleck asked him who should play his mum and unsurprisingly, the greatest basketballer of all time wanted one of the greatest actresses of all time.

While Affleck met with Michael Jordan to make sure the story included elements important to him, he never met with Nike. While this meant the crew lost out on some sick wrap gifts, it meant that they were free to make flawed characters who were, well, actual characters, rather than the holier-than-thou deities I'm sure the corporation would rather have them portrayed as.

There's obviously going to be a struggle bringing a story to the big screen when we all know the ending. But how many stories are truly unpredictable?

With 90% of movies [citation needed] we have a pretty strong indication where the story might go, but if you can get invested in the characters and what they're trying to do, you're still going to be happy going along for the ride and want to see them succeed.

Air is a film about people trying to do a good job. There's no real villain in the story. Sure there are road blocks — dang near everyone thinks that Sonny's idea of putting all their resources into signing Michael Jordan is insane. But you are made to understand the risk — the film does a great job of making everyone's apprehension clear.

The biggest feat of the film is convincing the audience that the status quo was once very different. Michael Jordan was just becoming a household name and Nike were looking to have to shut their basketball division. That all changed with the Air Jordan.

The biggest feet of the film are Michael Jordan's.

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