Film Review: An excellent cast avoids the soft shoe in Air

"...it's not Michael Jordan’s story, but that of Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), who is a talent scout at Nike’s ailing basketball shoe division as the movie opens in 1984"

Air tells the story of a young Michael Jordan - and his courting by Nike

• Air
• ★★★★☆

The greatest player in basketball’s history, Michael Jordan transcended the game to become a shining beacon of sporting excellence.

Air (15A), however, is not Michael Jordan’s story (which was brilliantly told in the recent documentary series The Last Dance), but that of Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), who is a talent scout at Nike’s ailing basketball shoe division as the movie opens in 1984.

Under pressure to sign an up-and-coming player to endorse the Nike basketball shoe, Sonny is dazzled by the young Jordan’s potential, and sets out to persuade his boss, Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), and Nike’s CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), to back his belief that Jordan will become one of the game’s greatest players. Strasser and Knight are reluctant to put all their eggs in one basket, of course, but that’s not Sonny’s biggest problem: standing between his hunch and glory is Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis), Michael’s mother and the keeper of the Jordan flame…

Matt Damon and Viola Davis in Air

Written by Alex Convery (who likely had to fend off a horde of Nike marketing execs to get to his typewriter) and directed by Ben Affleck, Air is a discomfiting affair, in part because it feels like a two-hour advertorial for Nike, but also because we already know how successful the Air Jordan basketball shoe will be. Obstacles are placed in the way of Sonny’s ultimate goal, naturally — ‘There is nothing cool about Nike,’ we’re told, and Michael prefers another brand of shoe entirely, and Deloris Jordan is resolute in holding out for what transpires to be an industry-disrupting deal — but these are minor issues given the by-now symbiotic relationship between Michael Jordan and his personally branded shoes.

That said, an excellent cast works hard to personalise the hard-nosed commerce that drives the story, with Damon and Bateman in especially good form as the marketing bods under pressure to deliver an impossible goal, and Viola Davis superb as the unflappably dignified but diamond-hard Deloris.

(cinema release)