I fell in love with basketball in the third year of elementary school and Michael Jordan’s exploits with the Chicago Bulls had a lot to do with it. Not having been able to afford Air Jordans during my youth, I took myself back to a ridiculous degree as an adult. The film Air, which chronicles how Nike convinced Jordan to wear his shoes, seems to have been made for me and my kind. However, what he tells goes far beyond basketball and sneakers.
First there is Sonny Vaccaro, a basketball scholar hired by Nike to find recruits who could allow the Oregon equipment manufacturer to compete with its competitors, Adidas and Converse. Matt Damon aptly interprets this somewhat extinguished man whose fire is suddenly rekindled when he realizes that Michael Jordan is a unique talent. Persuading him to choose his employer then becomes his reason for living.
Sonny must convince not only Nike co-founder Phil Knight (Ben Affleck, who seems to play according to the image we have of him: often grumpy and anxious, sometimes motivated and zen), but also Jordan’s parents. The mythical athlete asked that Viola Davis play his mother. He was not mistaken, because the Oscar-winning actress excels in the role of this calm, but determined woman.
Without stealing a scene, Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker add humor and humanity to their roles as Nike employees. Chris Messina, who plays agent David Falk, manages to make us smile precisely by his flagrant lack of humanity. Even if he is sometimes excessively angry, the actor we saw in Argo – also by Ben Affleck – gives relief to a film that does not have much.
Affleck’s production is particularly monotonous, while the subject certainly allowed for more audacity. The versatile entertainer roughly points out that his story takes place in the 1980s, but that’s it. Repeating shots showing fashion, food (read junk food), technology, stars, athletes and brands of the time, in addition to music from the same years, seems to us a rather simple and economical way – even cheap – to infuse style and colors. The film Tetrisseen last week, and the series Winning Timewhich also deals with basketball, seemed to us more clever in their way of depicting the same decade.
Our expectations of Air weren’t the same as most moviegoers, and while seeing more basketball and sneakers would have made us happy, we would have been more than happy with a bit more dynamism and originality to tell this very inspiring tale.
Indoors
historical drama
Air (VF: Air: Courting a legend)
Ben Affleck
Starring Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Ben Affleck
1:52