Movie Review: ‘Air’ shoots and scores, with story, character, catharsis and depth

“Air,” Ben Affleck’s funny, moving and surprisingly meaningful tale of how Nike came to create Air Jordan basketball shoes, might have been a real snore. We all know how the story ends, and do we really need a movie that perpetuates yet another David-and-Goliath myth about a world-dominating corporation?

Apparently, the answer is yes: Working from a well-judged script by first-time screenwriter Alex Convery and enlisting a superb cast of appealing ensemble players, Affleck has created something that Hollywood has seemed incapable of making in recent years: a smart, entertaining movie that, for all its foregone conclusions and familiar beats, unfolds with the offhand confidence of the most casually impressive layup.

The key to any story, especially one the audience already thinks it knows, is choosing the right donkey – the person who will not only lead us through the plot but make us care. Enter Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike talent scout who, as the movie opens, is working college games and nursing a compulsive gambling habit. “Air” begins in the 1980s, shortly after the company has gone public; although co-founder Phil Knight had attained a 50% market share in the athletic shoe market, in basketball he was trailing behind Converse and Adidas. During the era of Rolodexes, Rubik’s Cubes, Reagan and rappers – all of which are name-checked in “Air’s” snappy opening montage set to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” – Nike’s hippest product was tracksuits, not sneakers.

Sonny’s colleagues at Nike, including marketing executive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), field rep Howard White (Chris Tucker) and Knight (Affleck), seem to have accepted their lot as also-rans when Sonny suggests betting their entire sponsorship budget on the young North Carolina phenom Michael Jordan. What ensues might best be described as “Jerry Maguire” meets “King Richard,” as Sonny goes head to head with his bosses, Jordan’s fast-talking agent (Chris Messina), and the ultimate decision-maker and toughest negotiator of them all: Jordan’s mother, Deloris.

Affleck has said in interviews that Michael Jordan had only one stipulation in the making of “Air”: that Viola Davis would play Deloris. Affleck granted that request, and when Davis enters the proceedings, the weather changes. Up until her appearance, Damon, Bateman, Tucker and Affleck – who as Knight drives an absurd purple Porsche, wears goofy running get-ups and spouts corny New Age aphorisms – keep the balloon afloat with pacey jocularity and a slick, fast-moving business story.

Once Sonny goes to North Carolina to meet Deloris and James Jordan (the latter is played by Davis’ real-life husband, Julius Tennon), “Air” transforms from a worthy if conventional underdog tale to the chronicle of a seismic cultural shift.

“Air” is that rare sports movie that is virtually guaranteed to appeal to both hardcore NBA fans and people who don’t know a 3-point line from a field goal (thanks, Wikipedia!). The key, of course, is the human factor, here channeled through consistently relaxed, irresistibly likable performances, especially from Damon at his most relatably chunky, Davis at her most serenely commanding, Bateman (alternately quippy and disarmingly sincere), and Affleck, who between this and 2021’s “The Last Duel” might deserve an honorary acting Oscar for being willing to make himself look utterly ridiculous for the greater good.

As a director, he’s also willing to indulge the audience’s craving for pleasure, whether by way of “Air’s” thoroughly rewarding plot or delicious period-piece touches, which include an ’80s-tastic soundtrack and the re-creation of Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., headquarters, where smoking corners and sundae bars are the order of the long-bygone day. (He also wisely shoots the actor playing Jordan only from behind, avoiding inevitable and distracting comparisons.)

Spouting his own aphorism, at one point Sonny reminds his colleagues that “you’re remembered for the rules you break.” Affleck doesn’t break rules with “Air” as much as restore them, obeying principles that have seemed mortally endangered in recent years – about sound structure, recognizably human characters, satisfying catharsis, authentic but not overreaching depth. The modest but gratifying gifts of “Air” lie in its seeming effortlessness, reassuring viewers that a good movie can still be a good story, well told. It’s a movie that shoots and scores. And, miraculously, it turns out that’s still enough.