Air film review: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon turn a bad idea into a terrible movie

Ben Affleck as Phil Knight in Air.

Married reviewers Zanna Gillespie and Greg Bruce watch a very bad movie indeed.

SCORES

As an advertisement for Nike: 5

As entertainment: 1

As an example of hope in a world without much: 0

SHE SAW

Ben and Matt, Matt and Ben: Who wasn’t giddy for the heart-warming, Boston-boys-make-good, bromance of the 90s? And just as we all went gaga over Ben and Jen rekindling their 90s romance, hopes were high, very high, for the reunion of the so-called wunderkind Matt-and-Ben for the film Air. Sadly, it’s no Good Will Hunting. In fact, a more appropriate name for this film would be Hot Air because it’s full of self-important, gratuitous speeches by men in bad suits.

At the 37-minute mark, I asked Greg to pause it so I could state for the record that: “We’re 37 minutes in and absolutely nothing has happened except talking.” Greg argued that that’s what happens in movies - he’ll deny it but he was actually enjoying it at this point - and that Women Talking, a film I very much liked, was entirely based on talking. Not comparable.

Sure, the story of Air Jordans is a remarkable one. The world went crazy for the greatest basketball player we’d ever seen and Jordan hysteria turned into Air Jordan hysteria, the shoes becoming the most sought-after in history and making billions of dollars for Nike.

This movie, however, has taken the most boring part of that story - the intra-office negotiations between a bunch of middle-aged dudes - and attempted to turn it into an underdog tale of triumph. You might assume that in this case the underdog would be Jordan - a black athlete from Wilmington, North Carolina, who, thanks to the astute business nous of his mother, was the first to negotiate a profit share into his deal with a sportswear brand. But you’d be wrong: The underdog in Air is multibillion-dollar corporation Nike and their basketball talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon).

The film uses all the tropes of a good underdog story - abundant naysayers, an evil German opponent (Adidas), overwrought speeches, rousing music - but fails to see the tone-deaf nature of making Nike, a company with a track record of child labour and tax evasion, the little guy we’re rooting for.

I like all the actors in this movie: Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, Viola Davis and, of course, Ben-and-Matt. But if it wasn’t for the relentless soundtrack of 80s bangers and meticulous 80s product placement, it would be unwatchable. It leans very heavily on nostalgia to disguise the absence of a compelling story or any real stakes. What would’ve happened to Nike if they didn’t sign Jordan? They would’ve signed someone else and made many millions less, but ultimately would’ve been fine. Kudos to the set designer and music supervisor who have done their utmost to save this interminable talk-fest, but unfortunately it’s not enough.

HE SAW

My first thought, when I heard the concept, was that it was the worst idea for a movie I’d ever heard, so I was surprised to find it had become even worse in the making. I have to assume this was deliberate because I can’t accept the idea that we live in a world so cruel as to allow something this awful to happen by accident.

The movie is a two-hour-long advertisement for Nike, capitalism, American exceptionalism and f***ing other people before they can f*** you. It’s not boring, but then neither is watching the death of someone dear to you.

I spent most of the second half braced in my seat, being buffeted by comically overblown speech after hilariously overwritten, overemotive speech, in the same way I would brace in the event of a plane crash, and with about the same amount of hope.

The climax of the movie comes when Ben Affleck, as Nike CEO Phil Knight, tells Matt Damon, as his underling Sonny Vaccaro, to “Close the f***ing deal.” I guess the intention was that we stand up and punch the air, so it might have surprised director Affleck to see me curled up on the floor in the fetal position, clutching my stomach and vomiting into my mouth.

I like to think of myself as an empathetic person, but are we really expected to cheer for a bunch of uber-rich middle-aged babies crying about the not-actually-very-bad state of their billion-dollar company? Knight drives a purple Porsche with the number plate NIKEMN and Vaccaro takes lots of business trips to watch basketball, all of which include a side trip to Vegas.

At the end of the movie, approximately half an hour after any self-respecting director would have bestowed on it the mercy killing it so obviously wanted, Knight and Vaccaro have a ludicrously expositional conversation about the origins of the Nike name and logo. I have puzzled over this conversation for many hours since watching the film and can think of no good explanation for its existence, except that Affleck, who is also the movie’s director, was worrying – needlessly – that someone might still be enjoying themselves.

Like a spiritually empty Ted Talk, Air is littered with Knight’s empty and contradictory motivational aphorisms. At one point he tells Vaccaro, “You’re remembered for the rules you break” – a line that will no doubt resonate with the millions of Americans in prison, surprisingly few of whom are there for white-collar crime, and even fewer who are there for crimes against art.

Air is now streaming on Prime Video.