Ben Affleck in Air [Courtesy of Prime]

AIR
Directed by Ben Affleck
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆

“FOOTBALLERS’ wages” has become a byword for rampant pay inflation and is spouted by people who do not realise such cheques show how stupid capitalism can be, and is not about an individual’s greed.

It’s not the working-class-kid-done-well’s fault his value is in the thousands per week. It is because of the way the football industry is set up.

Air, a film about the creation of the Nike shoe that basketball player Michael Jordan made famous, tells the story of how sportsmen began to take control of the wealth they were generating.

Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) is the basketball fanatic employed by Nike to haul his way through high school sports tournaments and identify players getting the scholarships, and then the draft into the NBA.

He knows his ballgame and as we learn from watching him at play in Las Vegas, he likes to make a wager.

It is the mid-80s, and Nike are known for their running shoes, but not much else. The basketball shoe market is dominated by Adidas and Converse. Adidas have the jump, it appears, on their rivals by the fact their shoes are trendy – Run DMC are sporting the three stripes.

Nike cannot hope to compete, especially with a teeny $250,000 budget to find the players willing to sign up as Nike hoop stars.

Vaccaro knows – as does everyone else – that Michael Jordan is the next big thing. So how can he persuade the basketball player to wear a pair of Nike ahead of rival brands?

The plan is to bypass the prickly yuppie agent David Falk (Chris Messina) and go straight to Jordan’s parents Deloris (Viola Davis) and James (Julius Tennon).

By employing a personal touch, Vaccaro created a global brand.

A strange topic for a sports film, but Affleck – who gives himself a comic turn as the Nike CEO – has pulled together a great cast and made a story of corporate America feel like David versus Goliath.

While benefitting from a super cast, great script and perfect production values, you can’t escape the feeling you have sat through a two-hour shoe advert. This contradictory film makes a point that Jordan helped the sportsman – the unit of labour – be better remunerated for their product.

A nice idea, but detracted by Air creating an idea Nike was the plucky underdog, not the workers who are exploited by the thirst for mass-produced labels. They are, after all, the ones who make the Swoosh, swoosh.