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About 'Air'
WHAT: "Air"
STARS: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, Matthew Maher and Marlon Wayans.
STORYLINE: Nike tries to save its failing basketball shoe line by trying to woo a college standout but unproven pro by the name of Michael Jordan.
DIRECTOR: Ben Affleck
RATING: R for language throughout.
GRADE: A
Jason Bateman has a monologue in the middle of the movie "Air" about Bruce Springsteen's song "Born in the USA."
Playing Nike marketing chief Rob Strasser, he talks about loving the song and rocking out to it in the car until one day he paid close attention to the lyrics and realized it's not a rah-rah anthem. It's a song about a battle-scarred Vietnam vet unable to find work after his tour of duty.
It sounds like one thing, but it's something else entirely.
The same could be said of "Air."
When I first saw the trailer, I thought, "Are they really turning the story of a giant corporation whose product was made by Third World children who were paid pennies into a scrappy underdog tale?"
In some ways, that's exactly what "Air" is, and it's far better than any movie that fits that description has a right to be.
But it's also a movie about an African-American mother who sees the value and potential in her son's talents in ways that some of the greatest business minds in the country couldn't fathom at the time.
"Air" is just as impressive in telling that story. It looks like one thing, but it's something else entirely, and both are supremely entertaining.
"Air" stars Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, a Youngstown State University alum who was working for Nike in the '80s. Nike did well in the running shoe market, but it was a distant third behind Converse and Adidas in selling basketball shoes.
Vaccaro encourages Nike to use its entire $250,000 endorsement budget to lure Michael Jordan, the University of North Carolina guard who was drafted third by the Chicago Bulls in the 1984 NBA draft, instead of divvying it up among lesser draft picks.
Jordan, however, has no interest in Nike, so Vaccaro tries to reach the athlete through his no-nonsense mother Deloris (Viola Davis). She's been dealing with recruiters and agents since he was in high school and isn't going to be manipulated into doing anything except what's in Michael's best interests.
Michael Jordan is ever-present in "Air." He's seen on magazine covers and in vintage highlight reels and constantly talked about by everyone in the movie. But the actor playing Jordan (Damian Delano Young) is obscured, either shot from behind or from angles that hide his face. His only line of dialogue is delivered off-camera.
It's a stylistic choice that works, giving the athlete an aura that might have been harder to conjure if he played a more prominent role on screen.
Just as he did with "Argo," director Ben Affleck displays a knack for crafting crowd-pleasing adult entertainment out of topics that don't seem easy to adapt on screen. A good portion of the movie is alpha males yelling at one another, either face to face or over the phone. Screenwriter Alex Covery's dialogue has a heightened, Aaron Sorkin-esque feel to it and actors like Damon and Chris Messina (as Jordan's agent) deliver it with a cocky energy. Davis' performance provides a perfect counterpoint to these strutting roosters with her soft-spoken but steely demeanor.
The script is filled with the kinds of monologues that actors live for. The scene where Damon breaks down exactly why Vaccaro believes Jordan is so special is riveting and makes it understandable for sports fans and nonsports fans alike.
Those moments aren't just reserved for the stars. Marlon Wayans has only one scene as former basketball star George ,Raveling but it's a memorable one, and it's a scene that probably will make viewers do what I did -- go to the internet to see just how true the story is. The answer? Pretty accurate. In general "Air" seems to adhere closer to the spirit of the truth than most "based on a true story" movies.
Director Affleck gets a great performance out of actor Affleck as Nike founder Phil Knight, who is best described here as a zen narcissist. At one moment he's spouting Buddhist aphorisms; next he's explaining how many coats of paint are necessary to achieve that exact shade of purple on his sports car.
Like that sports car, "Air" is a sleek machine made with precision.
agray@tribtoday.com