Air: Jamie Skinner reviews Ben Affleck's latest film: A basketball talent scout (Matt Damon) working for struggling Nike places hundreds of thousands of dollars on selling a shoe to Michael Jordan.

Cert - 15, Run-time - 1 hours 52 minutes, Directors - Ben Affleck

The Nike rules often act as chapter headings throughout Ben Affleck’s latest directorial outing, Air. Rule 9 opens the film stating that “it won’t be pretty”. Rule 3 heightens this by encouraging employees to “break the rules”. Are they callbacks to rules of the past or for the struggling Nike of 1984? With each mention of being reminded of “the old Nike days” it seems apparent that it’s a case from the past as the film itself feels like something of a lookback with its rather traditional style.

As various back-and-forth conversations takes place between different characters in different rooms the drama at hand feels relatively low-stakes. The company is struggling to compete with market leaders Adidas and Converse, with the basketball division at threat of being closed down; they need a major player to promote their shoes. Talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) therefore tries to bring in rookie Michael Jordan to base a shoe around, one which will inspire a generation. 

While watchable, particularly working best when bringing its characters together and creating a spark of energy in a particular moment - whether a boardroom pitch scene or the simple decision to add more red to the shoe - the familiar nature to the events does occasionally remove something from them. Particularly when pretty much everyone around Sonny simply feels like a side-character only coming in when needed to progress the plot. Even when played by Viola Davis, portraying Jordan’s (Damien Delano Young, almost always shown from the back) sidelined mother Deloris.

Once it feels like the film has stopped playing things scene-by-scene it picks up more and starts to bring its elements closer together. The focus is more on the pitch and actually trying to sell the idea rather than battling to put it together in the first place. The initial conversations start to pay off in the second half as such points take course and there’s more to engage with. Yes, the fact that this is a film about a, albeit iconic, shoe is still present, but it’s easier to get caught up in some of the drama thanks to the less divided up nature of the storytelling.

You may find yourself wishing that the aforementioned rules were broken a bit more, or at least more severely, to slightly break away from the traditional line of direct drama in which the events take place, but for what there is Air provides relatively easy viewing for the time that it’s on. Occasionally lacking it shows its best creative sparks at the same time as its characters, leading to the smaller moments and lines of dialogue acting as the highlights. It may not quite fly, but it just does it and makes for an overall likable piece of direct drama.

Jamie Skinner, three stars