It's been a dire few years for non-franchise films at the box office. Sure, original horror movies are always reliably steady moneymakers, but even still, studios tend to wring a sequel or two out of the success stories.
2022 saw original films like Elvis and Nope make more than $100 million — but Elvis himself is a built-in brand, as is Jordan Peele at this point, and several other recent attempts at original, midbudget films have lost money. This week will be a true test of whether an original drama can still succeed in the current pop-culture Thunderdome.
Ben Affleck returns to the directorial chair this week with Air. It's his first foray behind the camera in seven years, the last being the critical and commercial failure of Boston-set crime drama Live by Night. (After the success of Gone Baby Gone and The Town, it’s understandable that Affleck wanted to take one more swing at that very specific subgenre.)
Air is a fastball right down the middle. Or, rather — considering Michael Jordan's baseball career — perhaps I should say it's an uncontested layup. Aside from Top Gun: Maverick, this is the most crowd-pleasing movie I’ve seen since the pandemic began. The needle-drops are obvious, and the jokes land perfectly. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t need to either.
If this movie isn’t a huge hit, we might as well give up on the idea of the studio-level adult drama altogether.
Air, which centers on the recruitment of Jordan to Nike and the creation of the iconic Air Jordan brand, is a Hall of Fame Dudes Rock movie. The cast is full of likable, charismatic actors bantering about sports and business, with plenty of sixth men coming off the bench to swish jumpers, including hilarious turns from Chris Tucker as Howard White, who coached Jordan at the 1984 Olympics, and Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk.
The film is an extra treat for basketball fans, with references to memorable figures throughout, including a pair of top-notch jokes about Gonzaga and Charles Barkley.
It also marks the continuing revival of Affleck’s on-screen partnership with his real-life best friend Matt Damon. 2021’s excellent The Last Duel marked the return of the Affleck-Damon duo officially, as the pair starred in and co-wrote (alongside Nicole Holofcener) the Ridley Scott medieval drama. But Air is the true heir apparent to their first film project Good Will Hunting — a drama for adults with both heart and laughs. All three movies are great reminders of the power of a pair of true movie stars. Even underneath outlandish wigs, facial air, prosthetics and beer guts, Affleck and Damon’s big-screen charisma shines through.
Before Air delves into an all-out bro-fest, Viola Davis takes over midway through the film with a heat check worthy of MJ himself. Playing Jordan’s mom Deloris, Davis nails a trio of key scenes in which her recruitment is just as important as his. This echoes Davis’ real-life recruitment for the role by Damon and Affleck. Jordan reportedly wouldn’t green-light the film without Davis agreeing to play his mom. Davis’ scene-stealing performance and Damon’s rousing late-game speech are sure to show up in clips packages during next year’s awards season.
Whether you grew up a basketball obsessive with Michael Jordan posters plastered all over your walls (me) or you couldn’t pick LeBron James out of a crowd, Air hits all the right spots.
