Air Movie Review: A terrific sports drama that just does it with a slamdunk

Have you ever played basketball? Have you experienced the exhilaration that comes when the ball doesn’t play around the rim, and just falls right through the hoop with a swooshing sound? Have you ever aced the no-look pass, and thrown chest passes like a bullet? And more importantly… have you ever watched basketball? For the connoisseurs of the game, even casual viewers, or even ones who aren’t really too aware of the game, there is one name that has been synonymous with basketball over the past four decades. Michael Jeffrey Jordan. 

Cast: Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck

Director: Ben Affleck

Rating:  4 / 5 

Streaming on: Prime Video

In Ben Affleck’s Air, except in an old videotape of a 1982 college finals, we never see Jordan on the basketball court. In fact, we never see the 20-year-old Jordan at all, who is throughout the movie just as a looming presence. Affleck keeps Air all about the scout Sonny (a terrific Matt Damon), Nike and its co-founder Phil (Affleck), and of course, Jordan’s mother, Deloris. Much like the 2019 film, Ford Vs Ferrari, Damon's Sonny has to face corporate bureaucracy, red-tapism, and hierarchical differences before signing in Jordan as a Nike athlete. Of course, we know they were successful in doing so, and kickstarted a sports revolution with the revenue model they finally zeroed in on. But such sports dramas are not about the results but the means. It is fascinating to see Affleck, and writer Alex Convery deliver a sports drama that is more focussed on the machinations of inking those multi-million lucrative deals that propel an athlete’s career into the big leagues. 

With conversation and coercion being the central themes of Air, it needed convincing performances, and that is exactly what Affleck extracts out of his brilliant set of actors. Damon as the pudgy and go-getting Sonny is just perfect, and he is ably supported by the charming Chris Tucker’s Howard White, Jason Bateman’s no-nonsensical journeyman Rob Strasser, Mathew Maher as designer Peter Moore, and Affleck’s mercurial Nike boss Phil Knight. In between moments of levity, and strong speeches, there is enough sentimentality and poignancy to ensure we are convinced that they are not just cogs in the corporate machinery, but are people who want to make a real difference. There are terrific cameos of sorts by Chris Messina’s trash-talking sports agent David Falk, Marlon Wayans as George Raveling, and the supremely stoic Deloris played wonderfully by Viola Davis.  

The strong suit of Air is in Affleck’s recreation of the 80s, and keeping the film as much about basketball as it is about that era. Affleck scores a slamdunk with dialogues that are full of spunk, earnestness, and pizzazz. If Sonny’s speech that brings the trophy home is top-tier, Deloris convincing them of why Jordan is that trophy is even better.

At one point in the film, Strasser says, “Sometimes the most you can do is all you can do,” and it makes complete sense. The world revolves around extraordinary people like Jordan, who disrupt the status quo. But it is the dreamers like Sonny, Strasser, Deloris, Moore, and White, who actually run the world. Air is a nice reminder that every extraordinary talent needed an ordinary person to believe in their talent in the first place. As Sonny says, “Everyone on this table will be forgotten, but Jordan, you will be remembered always.” In many ways, Air is an ode to those many roundtables, and their inhabitants, who played the game knowing very well they would be forgotten in the long run. But they still played it because… they loved the game.

Growing up in the city of Chennai in the 90s, I didn’t know much about basketball. The NBA matches used to be screened in the mornings just before my school van would come to pick me up. As a kid, I only knew Chicago Bulls… and Jordan. Of course, I picked up the ball later and knew of the other stalwarts of the game. Of course, there were many before him, and of course, many after him, but Jordan was a once-in-a-generation athlete. He could leap. He could dunk. He believed he could fly. And when Jordan had the ball in his hand, and was jumping to score a shot, time stopped. Is he a flawless player? Nope. Was he a flawless human being? Nope. But was he the Greatest of All Time… He believed he was, and who are we, mere mortals, to deny that?

Air is like getting the front-row seats to the first step of his journey toward greatness. Are these the best seats in the house? Not really. But they are quite good, and as long as it lasts, Air does a terrific job of letting us inside boring boardrooms, dreary office rooms, and the doldrums of the two ends of telephonic conversations that complemented Jordan’s on-court wizardry. We know Jordan’s legacy in sporting history will forever be etched in golden letters, and three of the most important ones are A, I, and R.