Air

Air

“Air” vibrates with the contagious liveliness of its central character: Sonny Vaccaro, a man who is hustling to secure the opportunity of his life.

Certainly, we are aware from the beginning that the ex-Nike executive was successful Michael Jordan became a megastar and perhaps the greatest basketball player ever. And the Air Jordan, which gives this film its title, became the most famous and desired sneaker of all time.

So how do you tell a story whose ending everyone knows? That’s where Ben Affleck’s direction becomes deceptively brilliant. The fifth feature he has directed is much like his previous movies as a filmmaker: “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town,” “Argo” (which won him a best picture Oscar) and “Live By Night.”

He makes solid mid-budget movies for grown ups that have become all too rare in Hollywood these days. Affleck values strong writing, seasoned performers and venerable behind the scenes craftsmen; his cinematographer here is longtime Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino collaborator Robert Richardson.

With “Air,” it all adds up to an incredibly fun package one that’s old-fashioned but also vibrant and crowd pleasing. Working from Alex Convery’s sharp and snappy script, Affleck tells the story of how Nike got Jordan by making a shoe not just for him but of him his soon to be iconic persona represented in something that felt like it could lift us up there, too.

This probably makes “Air” sound like a two-hour sneaker commercial. It’s not. If you love process movies movies about people being good at their jobs you will be engrossed by all of this film’s scenes set inside offices and conference rooms and production labs.

It’s those interactions within those mundane spaces that make “Air” such a delight, starting with the reunion of Affleck and Matt Damon. It’s a kick to see these lifelong best friends, co-stars and co-writers sparking off each other anew, more than a quarter-century after “Good Will Hunting.” Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike recruiting guru who saw the North Carolina teenager guard as a once in a generation talent and never stopped pursuing him to keep him from cooler brands like Converse or Adidas.

Affleck is Nike co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight, an interesting blend of Zen calm and corporate arrogance he walks around the office barefoot but drives a Porsche he insists is not purple but grape-colored. Vaccaro is the only person from those earliest days of Knight’s empire who can speak truth to power, and their camaraderie radiates affectionate friction.

The year is 1984 (trust me, it’s super-1984-y). The basketball division of Nike, a company that makes jogging shoes in Oregon, is not doing so well. And Nike is behind its competitors too. This is where Vaccaro comes in he knows Jordan can change all that, and most of “Air” involves him trying to convince everyone around him of this.

That includes director of marketing Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman, who does dry, rat a tat banter as well as anyone); player turned executive Howard White (a zippy Chris Tucker); Jordan’s swaggering agent, David Falk (Chris Messina, who nearly steals the movie with one hilariously profane telephone tirade); and finally, Jordan’s proud and protective mother, Deloris (Viola Davis, whose arrival gives the film a new level of weight and wisdom). Matthew Maher stands out as Nike’s eccentric shoe-design guru Peter Moore.

“Air” is a classic underdog tale of grit, dreams and moxie. In that spirit, there’s a killer monologue by Vaccaro at a key moment in hopes of sealing the deal with Jordan (whom Affleck shrewdly never shows us full on he remains an idea here, as he should be; but an intoxicating bit of cross-cutting shows us the legacy he will leave over time).

But Affleck very much wants us to know that we are in the mid-1980s. Sometimes this sense comes through subtly and amusingly such as in an offhand joke about Kurt Rambis that made me laugh. (You don’t have to know anything about basketball or this era specifically to enjoy the movie; but if you do there are added pleasures.) More often than not, though, Affleck wants to create nostalgia by setting nearly every scene to a needle drop or overwhelming us with pop-culture references.

As if the long opening montage of Cabbage Patch Kids, Hulk Hogan, the “Where’s the Beef?” ad, President Reagan, Princess Diana and more weren’t enough, he throws in a Rubik’s Cube or a stack of Trivial Pursuit cards just to transition from one part of the story to another. And the soundtrack of ‘80s hits is so relentless that it becomes distracting from Violent Femmes and Dire Straits to Cyndi Lauper and Chaka Khan to Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” playing for no apparent reason other than Knight is pulling into the Nike parking lot.

Watch Air For Free On Gomovies.