Air

Based on true events, Air follows Matt Damon’s Sonny Vaccaro as he leads the charge to sign Michael Jordan to Nike’s revolutionary Air Jordan campaign. It’s an appealing premise that’s employed to mildly erratic yet mostly entertaining effect by Ben Affleck, as the filmmaker, working from Alex Convery’s screenplay, delivers a relatively brisk endeavor that does grow more and more compelling as it unfolds – with the movie’s opening stretch, which is littered with inside-baseball-type chunks of sports-specific dialogue, suffering from an arms-length feel that’s admittedly alleviated by the actors’ uniformly top-notch efforts. (Damon’s typically sterling performance is certainly matched by an agreeably eclectic roster of such periphery players as Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, and Chris Messina, although it’s ultimately Viola Davis’ commanding turn as Jordan’s mother that remains an ongoing highlight within the picture.) There’s little doubt, then, that Air does improve substantially once it progresses into a midsection focused on the Nike team’s attempts at landing a meeting with Jordan, as Affleck suffuses this portion of the proceedings with a number of almost inherently compelling sequences, including a terrific scene detailing the first encounter between Vaccaro and Davis’ character, that cumulatively pave the way for a relatively consistent and generally engaging second half – which, when coupled with a note-perfect final few minutes, cements the movie’s place as a stirring true-life tale that fares much, much better than Affleck’s previous directorial effort (2016’s unwatchable Live by Night).

*** out of ****