Air (2023)
Directed by Ben Affleck
Discover the game-changing partnership between a then undiscovered Michael Jordan and Nike's fledgling basketball division which revolutionized the world of sports and culture with the Air Jordan brand.
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26 films that influenced Air
What critics say influenced Air
A sports drama in the same way that Aaron Sorkin’s Moneyball is a sports drama, Air uses the bones of an underdog comeback story and applies it to the macro world of sports.
This and other key moments play like classic Aaron Sorkin scenes, blending the inside-baseball insights of “Moneyball” with “The Social Network”-style power games.
If “Moneyball,” a spiritual cousin to “Air,” was baseball-adjacent, “Air” is about as far away from the game of basketball as one can get.
But there’s another, even more specific influence here in the form of Moneyball , itself a sort of Social Network clone, right down to the Aaron Sorkin script.
It feels like a scene lifted straight from Moneyball .
With echoes of Moneyball , which was also about the machinations that occur away from the game, the picture should enjoy glowing reviews and warm word of mouth.
This and other key moments play like classic Aaron Sorkin scenes, blending the inside-baseball insights of “Moneyball” with “The Social Network”-style power games.
Like “The Social Network”—a movie it surely will surely compared to—this is a vibrant time capsule capturing a moment in the culture when a series of events led to a revolution that forever changed the worlds of sports, business, fashion and lifestyle.
For instance, what would The Social Network (2010) be without the so-called friendship between Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin as a microcosm of how people would use their platform in the future?
With carefully curated production design and sterile, fluorescent aesthetics—a kind of ambient boardroom hum punctuated by a string of reliable I-Love-the-’80s bangers—Affleck’s film belongs to a contemporary subgenre of corporate origin myths whose gold standard is probably The Social Network .
Of course people think of Moneyball and The Social Network but you can go back to movies like Broadcast News and Network .
Skilfully directed by the Oscar winning screenwriter, and written with real zing by tyro scribe Alex Convery, AIR plays partly like one of Adam McKay’s period pieces on industry highs and lows ( The Big Short, Don’t Look Up ), and part like Cameron Crowe’s inspiring, sports-agent classic Jerry Maguire (this film also using music and motivational quotes, spliced between pivotal scenes in a similar fashion, to great effect).
At times, the editing speeds up, and we start getting whip-pans and smash cuts; things could start feeling awfully reminiscent of Adam McKay’s “The Big Short,” which can be insufferable if not done right.
Affleck’s given us something like “Jerry Maguire” without the romance crossed with “The Founder,” the (underrated) tale of mixer salesman Ray Kroc inspired by a burger drive-thru.
That was the case with “Steve Jobs” (2015), which unfolded the creation myth of Apple; with “The Founder” (2016), which did the same for McDonald’s; with “Tetris,” now on Apple TV+; with the upcoming “BlackBerry,” which is not, alas, about the harvesting of soft fruits; and with “Joy” (2015), which gave us our first chance—pray God it not be our last—to watch Jennifer Lawrence trying her hardest to sell mops.
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It’s easy to overlook things like that, except that Air leans so heavily on its soundtrack of ‘80s tunes – thanks to ubermensch Brett Arnold for the tip that Affleck also used bits from the soundtracks of 1984 films Body Double and Firestarter – that it sometimes threatens to overpower all the fantastic performances.
It’s easy to overlook things like that, except that Air leans so heavily on its soundtrack of ‘80s tunes – thanks to ubermensch Brett Arnold for the tip that Affleck also used bits from the soundtracks of 1984 films Body Double and Firestarter – that it sometimes threatens to overpower all the fantastic performances.
As for Nargle, he seems like a refugee from a Christopher Guest film, and I can imagine him, say, as an artist-in-residence among the folksingers of “A Mighty Wind” (2003).
Much like Moneyball or Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday, Air is a look at the business behind sports rather than the games themselves.
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These actors are all clearly revelling in the opportunity to flex their bravado and land Glengarry Glen Ross -esque lines like “I will eat your f***ing nuts”.
This is not GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS – we see some competitiveness, but also camaraderie and team spirit.
But then, I don't care about David Justice or Buck Weaver, and that doesn't stop Moneyball and Eight Men Out from being on my list of all-time favorite sports movies.