Air Movie Review: An Immersive Experience In The Eighties | Filmyhype

Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Chris Messina, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker

Director: Ben Affleck

Where To Watch: In theaters

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

The new film directed by and starring Oscar winner Ben Affleck arrives in cinemas on Thursday 6 April with the distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures. We’re talking about Air, an electrifying account of the birth of one of the most influential shoes in the modern collective imagination: the Air Jordan, made to measure in the late 80s for the basketball player Michael Jordan, who shortly thereafter he would become an unparalleled champion in his sporting discipline. 1984 was the year of the first Macintosh computer, the year Eddie Murphy hit the movie screens with Beverly Hills Cop and Bruce Springsteen’s voice blasted all the radios with Born in the USA. The A-Team series was depopulated on television, VHS spread like an epidemic and Ronald Reagan was re-elected president of the United States for a second term. 1984, the twenty-one-year-old Michael Jordan declared himself eligible for the NBA Draft, being selected by the Chicago Bulls as the third overall pick. From there begins his epic career, but the one he tells Air – The Story of the big jump is another story.

The new film directed by Ben Affleck, seven years after Live by Night, focuses on an event that took place in that same 1984, but which at the time seemed of little importance compared to all the others and compared to the blossoming of Jordan’s career same. It is the story of Nike, a shoe company looking for new channels of expansion to compete with Adidas and Converse. Thanks to forward-thinking agent Sonny Vaccaro, the company has decided to expand its sphere of influence to the basketball world, hoping to recruit players to wear their shoes. With little budget available, everyone knows that a rising star like Jordan would never sign with them. But Vaccaro isn’t willing to give in, having seen something in that young man that everyone else missed. In our review of Air, we will focus on how much Ben Affleck’s directorial vision has managed to bring back to the big screen a backstory that has never been seen before by renouncing the pandering and the petty celebration without losing a single ounce of adrenaline which distinguishes the story behind the creation of this shoe-masterpiece. Let’s find out how together.

Air Movie Review: The Story Plot

Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), an organizer of provincial basketball tournaments and a character apparently without art or part, was hired by Nike in the 1970s to convince players and coaches to become representatives of the young sports brand. During his period of work in the big company, Vaccaro will be the only person able to convince a very young Michael Jordan to sign for Nike, forever changing the history of sport, marketing, and sportswear. Air is the new film directed by Ben Affleck, who happily returns behind the camera after the commercial and critical failure of The Law of the Night, this time to tell the story behind the creation of Air Jordan, a sneaker model that in the mid-80s gave glory and extraordinary success to basketball champion Michael Jordan, at the same time revolutionizing the destiny of Nike.

A success that this time does not focus on the figure of the basketball champion loved by everyone, but on those within the American company who have given them all to create something unique and unprecedented. The one proposed in Air is therefore not the story of Michael Jordan’s early years of activity, who deliberately does not appear as a character but simply as a faceless presence in some scenes. His absence makes perfect sense for the film, reminding us not only that this is not directly his story, but also accentuating that sense of elusiveness, of an unattainable peak to which Vaccaro however wishes to reach with all his forces. Jordan is there, in front of him, but he can’t say it about him yet, not until that young man has made his choice.

A choice that, needless to say, will change forever not only the history of Nike but the entire world of sports. We are therefore faced with the origin of the legendary agreement between Nike and Jordan, on which Vaccaro makes a daring bet. Played by brilliant and intense Matt Damon, he is an inveterate gambler, as the first scenes in the Las Vegas casinos suggest. And just like director Ben Affleck is too. Both bet all their resources on a result that is difficult to predict, but to obtain it one must not rely solely on luck. If Vaccaro, therefore, tries to obtain a victory by going beyond the rules, in line with the founding principles of Nike, Affleck instead studies the best way to tell a simple story, however revealing its great charm and economic and cultural impact.

Air Movie Review and Analysis

Not only does Affleck reconstruct meticulously through details, archive footage, and photography, curated by three-time Oscar winner Robert Richardson, a genuine flavor of that era, but he increasingly brings out, scene after scene, the intimate dimension behind that story. Because if it is true that everything is told through the eyes of Vaccaro, and therefore from the point of view of Nike and its need to get that agreement, it is also important to underline how Air turns out to be an ode to perseverance, standing up for one’s beliefs and, of course, Michael Jordan’s value in history. But last but not least, the film is also a tribute to Jordan’s mother, Deloris, played here by an always gigantic Viola Davis, to whom we owe her son’s first significant choices.

He, therefore, focuses on people, Affleck, and through the very close-ups he dedicates to them, he brings out all the big heart behind this “small” story. A heart that beats much more than one could have imagined. This great heart does not correspond to a serious film, but a particularly sparkling work, enlivened by a good rhythm and a column full of the great classics of that era. But, above all, it’s a funny film, so he knows when to throw the right joke. It is precisely in this lightness that he finds a further ally, which allows him to stand out and establish himself as a particularly enjoyable worker. At the same time, there are several moments in which it is difficult not to get excited, and Affleck, demonstrating that he knows how to do them properly, once again confirms himself as a great director.

As Jon Landau saw the future of rock’n’roll, and it was Bruce Springsteen, Sonny Vaccaro in the eighties sees the future of basketball, and the future has the name of Michael Jordan. He’s so sure he’s seen it that he stakes everything – his job, his career, his life – on the deal with Jordan. He clashes with managers, makes fun of some, and nags others. And, when he finds himself in front of Michael Jordan – whom we never see played by any actor, but only from behind in a meeting, as well as in archival images – he tells him that future, in a beautiful monologue that speaks of the rise and falls, of solitude and company, a moment of the anthology.

From this, we understand that Air is a film of writing and actors. The story is strong in itself. But that’s not enough to make a movie out of it. A story like this must be made even bigger, with jokes worthy of being remembered (Vaccaro who, to denigrate Adidas, says that it was founded by a German, Adolf Dassler, and it concerns the Hitler Youth…) and writing – and of hence the acting – which is constant over the top, hyped, over the top, but not too much to be comical or farcical, just to make a realistic story extremely brilliant and enjoyable. A sort of “augmented reality”, to abuse a term that means something else, in which every joke, every flicker is not entertainment for its own sake, but a way for the story to reach us more deeply. An original film in its own way, it is as if it were Moneyball directed by Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, based on a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.

And this augmented reality enhances, and at the same time is enhanced, by the great actors on stage. Matt Damon, in the role of Sonny Vaccaro, is almost unrecognizable: overweight, apparently dull, dressed in tones that run through all possible shades of gray, he has a spark hidden inside anonymous clothes, a great inner strength. And, as we have seen, a great irony. Ben Affleck, directing, makes his friend shine and carves out a notable role for himself, that of the founder and CEO of Nike, Phil Knight: beard and curly hair that falls on his face, he is dressed as a CEO, in suits and blue tie in not very elegant bottoms, or sporty, with colorful and slightly ridiculous tracksuits. He’s the opposite of Sonny, yet he ends up feeling his energy. His astonishing and passive expressions in the face of Sonny’s decisions are worthy of the anthology. But we also liked the character of Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), creative director of Nike, who designed those shoes that he thought of giving the name “Air Jordan”.

Sports film, Air also becomes a period drama, a dive into the eighties that always works. We are talking about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, but also about Mr. T and Eye of The Tiger, i.e., Rocky III. Time After Time by Cindy Lauper and Sirius by the Alan Parsons Project are heard. And also, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in The USA tells us that it is the story of someone who can’t find a job. And that, yes, if the bet on Michael Jordan goes wrong, our heroes will lose their jobs (in another great monologue from the always good Jason Bateman, who is Rob Strasser, Vice President of Marketing at Nike. Or today we talk a lot about Metaverse (another term that we use inappropriately here, mind you) as an immersive virtual world, try watching Air on a big screen at the cinema: there is no more experience immersive than this.

You will find yourself in the eighties, to see the birth of a world, that of NBA basketball and its stars, that of sneakers that have become an object of fashion and cult. Ben Affleck is directing, with that mix between reality and fiction, between seriousness and irony that he has been able to handle well since the time of Argos. Almost as if to return to those first opening credits, which the director/actor circumscribes within a frame of images, sounds, scenes, and suggestions that made that decade essential (for better or for worse) both yesterday and today. And this is why Air finally takes the form of a perfect time capsule, where behind the creation of a sports shoe lies one of the most sensational and unpublished American success stories … from the 80s to today!

Air Movie Review: The Last Words

In the review of AIR, we told you about Nike and Michael Jordan. Ben Affleck tells us this story with a brilliant, crackling film, one of those shows born from a script and perfect acting times, a motivational and sporting epic story seen from another side: that of someone who has bet on a champion and has believed before others. Gripping and thrilling, Air is arguably Ben Affleck’s best feature film since the award-winning Argo. A story that not many knew and that the director/actor stages lightly, with a big heart, and with an exceptionally graceful cast.