Air (2023) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

The best way to know you have a great future ahead of you is when making the deal that’ll change your life.


PLOT


2023’s Air takes place in 1984 showing the Oregon based Nike Inc. on the verge of shutting down the basketball shoe division due to low sales. CEO Phil Knight and marketing VP Phil Strasser decide to task talent scout Sonny Vacarro find a new spokesperson for their shoes, but they believe Michael Jordan is off considered to be off limits due to preferring Adidas and being deemed too expensive for the meager budget due to being fresh off the NBA draft. Looking at his highlights however, Sonny sees Jordan to be a generational talent where both the brand and athlete can build off of each other. After having dinner with George Raveling, Jordan’s Olympic tournament coach, he’s able to get his support in courting the star. He then meets Michael’s parents, James & Deloris. He makes a promise to the latter specifically that Nike will give her son all the attention he wouldn’t get from Adidas & Converse. Although Michael’s agent David Falk dislikes him for going out of his way to try securing a deal, he does tell him the family will have a meeting with Nike at the Beaverton headquarters. Sonny and Strasser then prepare the pitch while Peter Moore prepares the first prototype for Air Jordan. In the meanwhile, Knight also agrees to assign the entire $250,000 budget to sign Michael rather than split it between three players. On the day of the pitch, Sonny describes to the Jordans that he’ll have such a great future in the NBA that everyone will want to feel as great as him through the shoes. Despite impressing them, they seem interested with Adidas matching the deal especially when offered a Mercedes to go with it. Deloris then reaches out to Sonny again that Michael will take Nike’s deal with the condition of getting a percentage of every sold Air Jordan. Sonny does not worry of it being possible due to industry precedent, until Knight approves and encourages him to close the deal. As Sonny celebrates the announcement with the office, the film ends in Anne epilogue: Strasser became credited for revolutionizing sports marketing at Nike Basketball, Howard White remained key executive and founding father of the Air Jordan Division (current vice president as of 2023) due to being a mentor to Michael before the deal was made, Peter later added on/created the silhouette logo for Air Jordan that appears on every product and passed away at 78 before production of this film was announced, David sold his company FAME to SFX in 1998 for $100 million and Nike bought Converse in 2003. Sonny also became a key figure in the 2014 O’Bannon vs NCAA Class Action Lawsuit that favored the players, which demanded colleges to compensate student athletes for commercial use of names and likeness, and New York Times claims any victory ranks him with the greatest reformers in sports history. Michael (who became the greatest basketball player of all time) got the car he wanted, reportedly makes $400 million a year in passive income as a result of the revenue share and credits Raveling’s support for picking Nike and Deloris runs multiple charities for underprivileged children including the James Jordan Foundation, named after her husband who was sadly murdered in 1993; The precedent of the foundation resulted in billions more dollars going to athletes and their families.


THOUGHTS


Whenever we get a biopic of an icon, they’re meant to either inspire us to push ourselves to the greatness we dream of having or teaching us what not to do to get there. Director Ben Affleck who is a big sports fan knew Michael Jordan has had such a cultural impact in his lifetime that it’d be a distraction to center on his rise to glory that no actor can do him justice. So with respect to Damian Young acting as his stand in where his face isn’t shown, we got a compromise in seeing a chapter that was the prelude to said rise. It’s kinda crazy of a realization to see how a shoe brand set the course of an athlete’s immortality apart from their talent, but that is kinda the point of the story. Apart from enjoying the 80s aesthetic that surrounds the story with makeup that makes Affleck appear quite transformative as Phil Knight, writer Alex Convery is able to use this period in time to inspires viewers to trust your instinct when it comes to taking the risks that can lead to something special. If you don’t even bother trying, then you’re gonna make it harder to get there. As an actor, Affleck is great as Knight because he’s able to make him relatable for being the ideal risk taker that made him successful in the first place. Just when he thought he didn’t need to keep doing so, he put his faith in someone who shared the same drive. Matt Damon was awesome as Sonny because he knows the difference of who comes & goes between who stays forever and the second he saw MJ. Even though he didn’t actually go over peoples heads to see the Jordans at home as the movie suggests, it does express exactly how sure he was of the best talent that can save Nike from the trenches. His speech that pitches Air Jordan where he says “A shoe is just a shoe until someone steps into it” (which was said first by Strasser and later reminded by Deloris) gets me a lot because he makes it clear how people want to connect more than ever with those who get to make it big and the flash forwards that confirm he’ll still be loved after all the ups & downs proves exactly how much of a visionary he is. If he didn’t take the time to see all that potential to secure the deal, I don’t think anyone else would. It was cool seeing Jason Bateman as Strasser because while cautious at first, he’s just as willing to support the gamble to secure MJ. I even enjoyed as well seeing Chris Tucker portray Howard White throughout as the most quintessential of optimism at the time because he too knew Michael enough to know he was worth investing. At the same time, I was more moved seeing Marlon Wayans since he doesn’t do a lot of dramas compared to comedies. As George Raveling, him sharing the fact he has Martin Luther King’s original ‘I Have a Dream’ speech impresses me a lot because with his wisdom, it’s able to further emphasize how you gotta trust your gut to get where you want to be. Some can give credit to David Falk as being part of Air Jordan’s success since he thought of the name too. And while Chris Messina was entertaining to be fiercely ruthless as an agent, I’d be foul to not mention the most of credit goes to Michael’s mother. The one request that the real MJ wanted for this movie was for Viola Davis to be Deloris and I don’t think anyone would want it other way because that’s so awesome she is here. Like Sonny, she is a visionary and her vision is for her son to have a future where he would never have to worry about how much he had left in his pocket. The fact that she locked the deal of a lifetime makes her the best mom ever along with the fact she made sure to give back in the process. Plus it was really sweet for Davis’ real life husband Julius Tennon to be James. Him saying ‘Here we go’ when Sonny pulled up made me smile because even he knew they were gonna have the negotiation of a lifetime. Having said that, it’s fitting that Michael wanted Davis to play his mom because that just says how much he saw her in her and I couldn’t agree more because her presence can be quite commanding no matter the size of screen time. With a mom like that, there’s really nothing else to ask in the world. In short, Air is a moving story that knows how to say the paths to greatness can be quite unpredictable and if those are the kind of movies you prefer, check this out when you can.