Air

Walking in, I was not sure how director and co-star Ben Affleck was going to make Air compelling.  After all, the film covers the story of the Nike shoe company and the deal it made with a then-rookie Michael Jordan, leading to one of the most popular and well known shoe brands worldwide.  I wasn't exactly sure how a compelling narrative could be formed with an outcome that is known to everyone.

Apparently Affleck understood this as well, and so he makes the movie compelling by telling the behind the scenes corporate story.  Similar to Moneyball, this takes a close and fascinating look at the wheeling and dealing that goes on behind the scenes of the sports world.  In all honesty, I find this kind of material more interesting than your usual sports underdog story that we so commonly get.  It probably helps that the film had the full cooperation of the people involved in the story, including Jordan himself, although he does not actually appear in the film. (We just see the back of an actor's head representing him in a few key scenes.) This is a boardroom drama that proves to be just as exciting as the action many fans expect on the court.

The film is set in 1984, a time period when Nike was falling behind in the athletic shoe world behind its rivals like Adidas and Converse.  They needed a sponsor for their line, and the attempt to get Jordan on their side was headed by Sonny Vacarro (Matt Damon), who had an eye for picking young talent for sponsorship, but had fallen short with some of his recent picks.  Sonny was famous for his out of the box thinking, and the minute he sees Jordan play (the #3 pick of the Chicago Bulls that year), he knows that the young upstart player is destined for great things, and can help turn the company's fortunes around.  However, not only does he have to convince Jordan and his family to sign with Nike to begin with, he also has to deal with those within the company who think his pick is too much of a longshot for them.

Fellow employees Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) and Howard White (Chris Tucker) remind him that Jordan is not interested in a deal with Nike, and has even said so.  Even the CEO of the company, Phil Knight (Affleck), thinks it can't be done.  But, Sonny shows his true outside the box thinking by going against the advice of Jordan's agent, David Falk (Chris Messina), and flies out to meet with Jordan's mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), to try to persuade her to convince her son to visit Nike and hear their pitch.  When the meeting is set up, Vacarro and his team then have to create a shoe unlike any other, one that not only went against the coloring of athletic shoes in basketball at the time, but creates an insanely lucrative offer for Jordan that was unheard of at the time when it came to athletic celebrity sponsorship.

Air almost solely takes place within the boardrooms and corporate offices within Nike and the rival shoe companies vying for Jordan to sign with them, but the movie makes up for its lack of setting with some brilliant dialogue, and scenes that take advantage of its strong cast, all of whom get a chance to stand out.  The dialogue not only sounds genuine, but what they talk about sounds authentic.  I never once felt like I was watching a dramatization, and often felt like I was right in the corporate trenches with these figures as they wheel and deal, design, and try to top the competition.  The movie mixes facts, humor, and a ton of nostalgia both with its 80s soundtrack choices and references to create the first truly riveting fact-based drama of the year.

Credit goes to first-time writer, Alex Convery, who knows how to juggle fast-paced corporate dialogue, and more intimate moments that show how Sonny is pretty much putting everything on the line, and if things don't work out, he could very well be sunk.  Convery shows a mastery of different kinds of dialogue.  He can be profane and funny, such as the scene where Jordan's agent goes on a profanity-laden tirade at Sonny when he learns he flew out to meet Jordan's parents, he can be tender and honest, such as a scene where Bateman's Strasser reveals why he works at Nike, and he can also get the audience excited as the plans behind the design of the shoe fall into place.  He knows how to sell this material, and there's little wonder as to why his script was a sought after one on the "Black List" of unproduced scripts a few years ago, and managed to get the attention of such top talent.

The end result makes Air much more entertaining and engaging than you might expect walking in, as it mixes fascinating corporate politics with the nostalgia of the time period.  This is a fast-paced drama that should be studied by those wanting to write dialogue that sounds like actual conversations, rather than words upchucked by an Automatic Screenplay Machine. 

0 comments