When I was in middle school and high school there was one thing that meant the most to me, and that was basketball, and one of the biggest parts of basketball culture is the shoes. Starting in 6th grade, I was craving a pair of the newest Lebron’s, which at the time were the Lebron 6s, and then sneaker fever really took me over when I was in 7th grade, and I was so into all the different variations of the 7s that I could tell you what they were called, and what colors they were. Then in eighth grade, I finally got a pair of the Lebron 8s, and after that I got a pair of Lebron’s basically every year till I was done in high school. Although now I am just a runner, and I can not tell you the different variations of Lebron’s now, I still care greatly about shoes, and I can tell you a ton about running shoes, specifically all the Brooks variations, and I try to get the special edition ones that I find cool. So needless to say, when I heard that there was a movie coming out about the creation of the Jordan brand shoes, Air, I was really excited, and even more so, when I heard about the star studded cast it would have!
Sonny Vaccaro works for Nike, and he is specifically in the business of getting basketball athletes to sign with Nike. In the early 1980s, Nike was not a basketball powerhouse, they had one notable athlete signed, and that was about it. The other stars at the time were with Adidas or Converse, like Bird and Magic. Vaccaro was only being given $250k, and with that money, he was supposed to get three or four players to sign, and hopefully they were in the top half of the 1984 draft. When they were having their meeting over which players to go after, Vaccaro was not interested in any of the ones that they felt were within their price point, except for maybe Charles Barkley, but he had “off court concerns.” So he went to Phil Knight the CEO of Nike, and he asked if he could give all the money to the newly drafted Chicago Bulls player, Michael Jordan, and Knight said no.
Vaccaro kept working, not only on convincing Phil Knight, but also Rob Strasser and Howard White, his higher ups in the basketball department, and for all of this to matter he needed Jordan’s agent, David Falk, and Jordan’s parents to agree to a meeting, because at that moment, it was basically considered a done deal that Jordan would sign with Adidas. Vaccaro flies down to North Carolina unannounced and meets with Jordan’s mom, and he basically convinces her that Nike deserves at least a chance. So after meeting with Converse and Adidas Jordan goes and gives the Nike sales pitch a listen.
This movie did a great job of injecting the audience with a dose of nostalgia. Although I was nowhere near being alive in 1984, that did not prevent me from feeling the vibes. The music in this movie was great. I love a good needle drop in a movie with a well-known song, and this movie was filled with them. 80s hit after 80s hit, and sometimes, the songs even became relevant to the plot. Also there was the fashion, there was a ton of talk about track suits, like, “Well Jordan really wants to sign with Adidas, because he really likes their tracksuits.” It was great to see Phil Knight’s running fashion as awful as it was, he had pink shorts with pink tights and a massive white jacket that looked like it had shoulder pads. They also had a whole montage at the beginning of the movie that was dedicated to setting up 1984.
Also as mentioned, this cast is star studded. Damon plays the main role of Vaccaro, and his emotional ebbs and flows are great. The emotional pinnacle of the movie, when Damon announces to the office that they landed Jordan gave me goosebumps. Affleck not only directed the movie, but he also played the key role of Phil Knight, and his was probably my favorite performance of the movie, the blend of the clothes he was wearing, and his demeanor was excellent. He was supposed to be this zin and relaxed figure, but then he would get bursts of anger. Jason Bateman is also great. He does such a good job of walking the line between being funny and being serious. I fell in love with him watching Arrested Development with my dad during the pandemic, and then he was awesome in Ozark. This performance was like the blending of his characters in those two shows. David Falk was Jordan’s agent, and man was he going for it. Every scene he was in, he was giving maximum emotion, and it made you hate him, but also respect the energy he was bringing. Last but not least is Viola Davis as Jordan’s Mom. Although she was not in the movie as much as the others, she put on by far the best performance. If you know Davis this is not a surprise, but every time she spoke, I was hanging on every word, and even when it was not an emotional moment, her acting is just perfection.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are known to be really good friends. I heard an interview with both of them on Bill Simmons’s podcast recently that was even more enlightening on their relationship. Like many friends, when they were young adults, they lived together, but their relationship had something else added to it, that I have never heard of before. They were so close, that they shared a checking account. They had money that they shared, and if one of them needed money to go to an audition or try to get work, then they would dip into their joint fund. Normally this is something reserved for married couples, but their bromance was strong enough to share funds, which is kind of awesome. It was a great interview in general as they explained key events in each other’s lives through the other’s perspective. It is great to see two people who reached extreme fame be so down to Earth and continue to be great friends.
This was an interesting weekend to go to the movies, because of the releases that came out, and how you can tell what people are going to see based off of how they are dressed. When my dad and I were walking into the theater, we saw multiple kids dressed up as or wearing Mario shirts and hats. Then when we were leaving there was a family that was coming in, and multiple of them were wearing Jordans, so it is the rare time where you can look at a person and guess with a high probability what movie they are going to see. Funnily enough, two days after seeing this movie, I went and saw the new Mario movie, and that morning, I cut off my beard, and left my mustache, and I had my hair cut. So when I went to the movies, it probably looked like I was also trying to cosplay as Mario.
Basically, I liked everything about this movie. The cast was great, each and every actor gave a noteworthy performance. Also the music from the 80s were total jams. It really helped set the scene for the 80s. The story was about something that I care deeply about, shoes. The hour and fifty run time also flew by, and not in a bad way, the story did not feel rushed. So there is really nothing to complain about, but for some reason it was missing an emotional pull or tension for me. They made me believe that Jordan could sign somewhere else, even though I knew the outcome, but for some reason I just could not fully feel the pull. I am guessing that I was just missing out on some of the nostalgia pull. Nonetheless it was a great time at the movie theater, and I recommend going to see it. I gave it 3.5 Stars.
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