I fear that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon may just be a dream team.
Air tells the story of how Sonny Vaccaro and Nike pursued rookie Michael Jordan in an attempt to create a partnership that ended up revolutionized the world of sports and massively affected pop culture. Somehow Ben Affleck made this film feel like a high-stakes heist film. The witty screenwriting, with a stellar ensemble cast, and a perfect soundtrack that was sprinkled throughout made for an exhilarating movie-watching experience. I don’t think I’ve ever thought twice about how Michael Jordan and Nike became partners yet I found myself completely invested in the story. Though the main narrative of the film surrounds the endorsement deal, the film is so much bigger than that. Air is a massive pep talk for anyone who is full of second-guesses while trying to pursue their dreams, it’s a celebration of the underdog and it’s a reminder to uplift our friends even in times when their ideas sound ludicrous.
Putting it plainly, this movie is for the girlies that choose to trust their gut even when the world is telling them that they’re wrong.
I cannot emphasize enough just how much every aspect of this movie perfectly works together but it’s really the ensemble cast that makes you care about what’s happening on that screen. Of course Ben Affleck as Phil Knight and Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro play well off each other but the biggest surprise from the cast is Chris Messina as Michael Jordan’s agent, David Falk. I’ve known Chris Messina has impeccable comedic timing for years and I’ve just been impatiently waiting for the world to catch up; he is the stand-out in this film and I better see him in every single Supporting Actor category in the next Awards season. The stellar performances don’t stop there though; Viola Davis (Deloris Jordan) has yet to meet an inspirational moment that she doesn’t absolutely sell and this film is a reminder of that. She plays the matriarch of the Jordan family with her heart on her sleeve and her performance feels palpable because of it.
It’s evident that Ben Affleck made this film with a lot of respect for not only the story he was telling but for the iconic athlete that he was celebrating. There is an actor playing Michael Jordan (Damian Delano), but we never see his face and though at first I considered it to be an obscure decision, I find myself respecting it more and more while I sit with it. “Jordan is too big,” Affleck told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview of the decision. “He exists above and around the story, but if you ever concretize him, if you ever say, ‘Yes, that’s Michael Jordan,’ we know it’s not, really. It’s fake”. Affleck is right, the icon that Michael Jordan is doesn’t need physical representation, we know what he looks like and we don’t need to buy any further into the story because the ensemble cast does the work for us.
If Ben Affleck could bottle up whatever magic he found while filming this movie, I bet every single studio in the industry would buy it. This movie is a ride worth taking and dare I say, I think we have the first Oscar contender of 2024 …
Air is now playing in theaters.
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