“Air” (Amazon Prime) cleverly and crisply chronicles Nike’s 1984 signing of Michael Jordan to the now-legendary basketball shoe contract. It’s not a chronicle of Jordan remaking the economics of athletic shoes on his own (he’s the film’s absent center), but rather of Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) raising Nike to prominence via out-of-the-box thinking.
Out of the woods
Director Ben Affleck’s film seeks to bring us back to 1984 via the soundtrack and the brown-and-orange color scheme of Nike headquarters in woodsy Oregon. It mostly succeeds, but at one point Sonny buys Wheaties with a 1987 Twins back panel. I suspect there are other anachronisms if even I noticed one.
That quibble aside, I have to admit that writer Alex Convery kept me engrossed with his Aaron Sorkin-style film. We see how these office workers are not drones; they have passion and conservative streaks similar to athletes and coaches.
“Air” (2023)
Director: Ben Affleck
Writer: Alex Convery
Stars: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck
Sonny, the head of the struggling hoops division, hopes to make one big play, putting the entire budget into MJ and having him define the shoe – rather than the other way around, as at Adidas and Converse. Nike founder and owner Phil Knight (Affleck) has become more conservative, and initially wants to use the budget to sign three or four decent rookies.
Damon, seemingly effortless in these walk-and-talk biopic roles, finds a middle ground between Sonny’s enthusiasm and intelligent analysis. In one of the best sequences, he pores over the clip of Jordan’s winning shot in the 1982 NCAA championship game like it’s the Zapruder film and finds a nuance.
Mother knows best
Viola Davis is a second lead of sorts as Deloris Jordan, who is the key to making “Air” possible to begin with. Having MJ as a main character would be a tough sell – although admittedly TV’s stylized “Winning Time” has been great with actors playing Magic, Kareem and Bird – but as it turns out the Nike-Jordan contract story is largely Deloris’ story anyway.
MJ is set on Adidas, with Converse as a backup. But his mother has the foresight to give Nike the time of day. In a twist, we see how she is not merely open-minded, but also a savvy visionary – possibly even more so than businessman Sonny.
An actor does play MJ, but we never see his face and he only has one line. Yet it never feels like a gimmick. “Air” reveres him as a god, but truly in a godlike way, rather than in a slobbering-fan way. He’s the subject around which everyone else works with his best interests in mind.
Other good turns come from Chris Tucker and Jason Bateman amid the cubicles, giving further perspective on how aggression or conservatism is seen by middle managers. Their fears of job loss could easily derail Sonny into following Knight’s conservative plan. And Matthew Maher gives an idiosyncratic lispy turn as Peter Moore, who’s merely, you know, the guy who designs the friggin’ shoes.
A particularly compelling performance comes from Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk. Messina is in seemingly everything, but I’ve never before seen him with this nasty edge. The Falk-Vaccaro relationship provides dark insight into the power games in the halls of agents and pitchmen.
It’s gotta be the shoes
Overall, though, this is a sunny biopic about Sonny and, to a lesser extent, Deloris. It’s an excellent companion piece to the Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” and the Lakers docu-series “Winning Time.” They intriguingly touch upon the formative years of shoe endorsement deals, and here we get the full picture.
Business dealings are cutthroat at times, but “Air” reminds us that not all deals have a “winner” and a “loser.” Contracts are about mutual benefit. That’s never been truer than with this one, which made MJ wildly rich, vaulted Nike from an also-ran to the top of its industry and changed the way everyone thinks about athlete endorsement deals.
Now that deal has also resulted in one of the best films of 2023.