Air

The public is starved for anything that’s original with some entertainment value.  Anything please that’s not a cheap re-run or retread comic book.  Something! Well, this flick has all the elements of a great movie: 80’s nostalgia, sports heroes, middle-aged losers that win.  So how can you screw it up, right? I’ll tell you how.

Firstly, when did it become in vogue for actors to get fat for movie parts? Ever since Dinero did it for Raging Bull, it’s been popular.  Matt Damon plays Nike Marketing agent, Sonny Vacarro, who signs Michael Jordan.  Sonny saves Nike, everybody’s job, and signs Jordan to a revolutionary deal that pays him revenue share.  Damon gains weight for the role to show Sonny as a fat guy.  Why? I looked up Sonny on the internet.  He doesn’t look fat to me.  I don’t get it.   

Also, Phil Knight, played by Ben Affleck, has this funky wig.  Maybe it wasn’t meant to look like a wig, but he looked like Marty from Goodfellas.  Dumb.  Then when Knight walks into a meeting with Jordan and parents, he’s intentionally late, interrupts, and makes a buffoon out of himself.  The Jordans should have left right there.  It wasn’t entertaining.  It was bewildering.

Jason Bateman plays a Nike Marketing guy and says in the middle of a meeting that he has to take a sh__.  We then cut to him on the throne while Sonny is doing a number 1 and they’re having a heated conversation.  Wow!

In the first 3 minutes, we get a collage (there’s a new concept!) of every single 80’s symbol imaginable.  New Year countdown to 1984.  Ronald Reagan.  Rubik’s Cube.  Jazzercise.  Hair parted down the middle.  Walkman.  Atari games.  Cassette tapes.  Pac-man.  Then, to reinforce that we’re still in the 80’s, they jam 80’s music down our throats every single minute of the movie.  It starts with Dire Straights and ends with Bruce Springsteen.

At the end, we get summarized captions of what happens to everyone(yet another original idea!):

• Sonny saves the day.

• Sonny is involved with a court case to let college athletes profit off their name, image, and likeness.

• Jordan becomes the greatest NBA player ever.

• Jordan makes a ton of dough.

• Nike kicks ass.

Please save your money on this B movie.  Simply set your Spotify to “80’s music” and read the five bullets above.  That’s all you need.  Lastly, how’s this for irony: Sonny helped Jordan, Knight, and college athletes make millions of dollars; yet it’s Sonny that clips coupons in a van down by the river.  Sad.