Peter Howell: Ben Affleck-Matt Damon movie ‘Air’ is the highly entertaining story of Nike’s Air Jordan deal

Air

Starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Matthew Maher and Julius Tennon. Directed by Ben Affleck. Opens Wednesday in Toronto theatres. 112 minutes. 14A

To say that actor/director Ben Affleck’s docudrama “Air” is about a pair of basketball shoes is like saying “Cinderella” is about a glass slipper.

It’s really the triumphant telling of the sweat, salesmanship and bravado behind the creation and marketing of these shoes, the Air Jordan model worn by hoops legend Michael Jordan, and of the groundbreaking deal that changed sports sponsorships forever.

“Air” is that most familiar and satisfying of movie stories: believing in yourself and persuading other people to accept your quest, despite long odds and questionable methods. It’s the art of the deal, to quote a certain orange-haired scoundrel.

Set in 1984 at the dawn of the Air Jordan phenomenon, the film is also highly entertaining, returning longtime friends Affleck and Matt Damon to the screen and foregrounding Viola Davis as Deloris, the mother of Michael Jordan. She’s the canny woman who — as this telling of the tale goes — really got the deal done, which included an unprecedented cash percentage for her son of every Air Jordan shoe sold, a benefit that reportedly, as of 2020, has earned him $1.3 billion (U.S.) and counting.

Creating what will become the Air Jordan line certainly motivates the characters: “I need the greatest basketball shoe that’s ever been made,” Damon’s hustling sponsorship scout Sonny Vaccaro tells Nike designer Peter Moore (a droll Matthew Maher), who duly takes up the challenge.

What really energizes the excellent ensemble cast, which also includes Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker and Marlon Wayans, is convincing the shoes’ namesake — basketball great Jordan — to put them on and play in them as his personal brand.

First-time screenwriter Alex Convery manages to turn what could have been a business magazine article into gripping cinematic storytelling. He achieves this even though “Air” veers dangerously close at times to being a PSA for Nike, the upstart Oregon shoe company co-founded by ex-sports reporter Phil Knight, who later became a billionaire businessman.

Affleck shrewdly casts himself as Knight, playing the Nike CEO not as corporate genius but rather as comic relief, a peacock philosopher who is almost clownishly indifferent to how business is normally done. He drives a grape-coloured Porsche, jogs in magenta-hued shorts and is fond of quoting the New Age maxims that litter his firm’s walls and ads.

“You’re remembered for the rules you break,” he says at one point, although he’s nervous at first about blowing $250,000 on one player. That’s the entire amount Knight’s running-shoe company earmarks annually for marketing its lower-priority and underperforming basketball shoe line.

But his friend and employee Sonny insists it’s going to take that sum, and a whole lot more, to woo rookie basketball star Jordan who, although just 21 and having not yet played an NBA game, has already started to show signs of the brilliance that will soon make him an international superstar.

Jordan is more inclined to sign a sponsorship deal with either of Nike’s main rivals, Adidas or Converse. These companies have an undeniable coolness factor. Basketball player turned Nike executive Howard White (an acerbic Tucker) explains to Sonny: “Black people don’t wear Nike,” full stop.

Sonny isn’t listening. He’s out to prove the doubters wrong, but he’s not an obvious Midas with the golden touch. Middle-aged Sonny is paunchy, out of shape and inclined to make risky bets in Las Vegas. His position at Nike is so low profile the sign on his office door reads “Tape Archive.”

Damon plays Sonny like a corporate version of his “Jason Bourne” action hero character, making daring moves like going to the Jordan home to directly pitch Michael’s parents, Deloris and James Jordan (played by Davis’s real-life husband, Julius Tennon), about what Nike can offer their son. Later he’ll make a boardroom pitch to the whole family, with the fist-pumping theme “Who are you, Michael?” that seems like a ready-made clip for the Oscars ceremony this film could conceivably shoot for.

Such ballsy bravado just isn’t done in the sports business world of 1984, as Jordan’s outraged agent David Falk (a hilariously profane Chris Messina), will later thunder down the telephone to an amused Sonny.

Something else that isn’t done, especially in films about sports heroes, is hiding the hero. The real Michael Jordan is glimpsed in game reels, but the actor playing him in “Air,” Damian Young, is barely seen and usually from behind. It’s another smart move by Affleck, who wisely intuits that Michael Jordan plays better as a symbol in a film like this.

And kudos to Affleck for getting the 1980s right in look and tone. The film opens with a montage of images and songs that are era specific, including the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun,” which has the appropriate line, “When I’m out walking, I strut my stuff.”

Another 1980s memory comes near the end of the movie, when we finally get to see designer Moore’s prototype of his Air Jordan shoes, which defy NBA rules with their bright red colour.

The score turns majestic and light shines in the eyes of the dazzled beholders, much like the moment in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when the title artifact is unboxed. Faces don’t melt, but it almost feels like they could.

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