To be honest, if I could watch nothing but sports movies for the rest of my life I’d be completely happy with it. Especially when hotshot directors like Ben Affleck are coming up with interesting and fun ways of making them. Maybe basketball isn’t exactly my ‘thing’, but what a good sports movie does is take any sport imaginable and make you feel enthralled by it. To put it short: this movie had my undying attention the entire time.
Air is the real life story of how Nike managed to sign the man who is now the world’s most famous and most legendary basketball player, Michael Jordan, to an exclusive rights deal. When we join Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) at Nike, their basketball division is on the verge of being shut down all together, but as Vaccaro proves himself as the only man who can pull off something so monumental, the Air Jordan brand is founded and Nike becomes the biggest sports brand in North America.
A sports movie that is also an account of a true event? Ben Affleck made this one for me, I’m sure of it. I mean, check my introduction above, then try and convince me that isn’t the case.
Do I know anything about basketball? Absolutely not. Does it matter? Absolutely not. Everyone knows Michael Jordan at least (and not just because of Space Jam). Either way, Affleck and scriptwriter Alex Convery do a fantastic job of making sure even those who don’t understand the sport or its behind the scenes politics do understand what’s going on here. And what’s going on honestly is genuine entertainment.
Sure, it’s kind of basic in terms of its plot and there’s not a whole lot going on that you can’t find out with a little bit of research, but the filmmaking is actually rather good. Shooting everything with a grainy, hyper-colourised filter throughout is a lovely (and perhaps necessary) touch that really helps an audience get into the historical nature of it all, and those costumes? Perfect. (Although that’s no surprise when costume designers Charlese Antoinette Jones (Judas and the Black Messiah), Eileen Gonzales (King Richard) and Jessica Posada (Us) are the brains behind the operation).
Now the stand out of the entire thing is quite obviously Viola Davis. She always is. Truth be told, I feel like she’s this generation’s Meryl Streep in that she can truly do anything asked of her. Besides Davis though, Matt Damon does a wonderful job as the lead, managing to be both endearing and charismatic as sports agent Sonny Vaccaro. Honestly I’ve never been much of a fan of his before, but this performance might change my mind.
It’s not my favourite sports or sports-related movie, but Air does its job in presenting the world with a behind-the-scenes look of how that shoe came about. Although you probably won’t see it if you don’t love sports, I’d suggest you give it a watch anyway – it’s worth your time. Truly recommended.
Air is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
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