(M) ★★★★
Director: Ben Affleck.
Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker, Viola Davis, Matthew Maher, Julius Tennon.
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| "It looks blue now, but get it away from these blue lights and... it's still blue." |
Air answers two very important questions: "Can you make an entire film about a shoe?" and "Can you make a film about Michael Jordan without really having Michael Jordan in it?".
In the hands of director Affleck, the answer is a resounding "yes" to both questions. So the next round of questions becomes "Why make an entire film about a shoe?" and "Why make a film about Michael Jordan without really having Michael Jordan in it?".
To put it simply, the shoe in question is more than just a shoe. Not since Cinderella has a shoe played a more pivotal role in something. This is a shoe that made the '80s - it changed an industry, shaped a sport, warped popular culture, and helped make a man into an icon before he became a legend.
Air is the story of Nike's efforts to court and sign then-NBA rookie Michael Jordan. While you can file this in the "I Know How It Ends" basket alongside Titanic, this Moneyball-like drama milks every ounce of tension, humour and pathos out of its tale of The Little Shoe Company That Could.
Affleck takes Jordan out of this film as much as possible to focus on everyone else who helped create the must-have fashion accessory of the '80s. While it could be distracting, it's a smart directorial choice, helping keep Damon's basketball guru Sonny Vaccaro front and centre, while also subtly playing into the mythic nature of His Airness.
Damon's great as the unlikely hero, and well supported by his buddy Affleck, Bateman, the rarely seen Tucker, a sweary Messina, and a scene-stealing Davis as the quietly spoken Mrs Deloris Jordan. The cast can't be faulted, even if their characters are sketched thin. It's tempting to remark "it's just a shoe" repeatedly throughout the film, but that's because the protagonists' motivations are somewhat obscure and the stakes seem sadly low. Are they doing this because it's their job? It's not like Nike will go under if they don't sign Jordan and make a shoe for him - it's just that history will be different.
Yet the script keeps your interest, dragging you along to the inevitable. Because in the end it's about history - it's about a weird moment in our popular culture where a group of oddly dedicated men chased a dream and re-shaped our reality. And that's Air - it's about the inevitability of history and making dreams reality. Jordan was always going to be a phenomenon, and a sport star was always going to transcend their sport in a way that altered pop culture. Air celebrates the team who were smart enough to see history's wave before it broke, and then surfed it all the way to the bank.
A bangin' '80s soundtrack and some somewhat gratuitous prop placement ("Hey look it's that game/cereal/ad from the '80s") help sell the vibe of it all. And that vibe is about fun. If there are two things that the '80s were really all about, it was having a good time and making a metric fuckton of money. In that sense, Air is the perfect '80s movie.
Inspired by The Last Dance, Air serves as a perfect entrée to that acclaimed Netflix doco series. But best of all, Affleck has done a Moneyball/The Big Short; he's taken something esoteric and niche and made it enjoyable light entertainment for the world at large.
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