When it comes to a film like Air, the supposed passion project for director Ben Affleck and his close friend and longtime collaborator (despite there being virtually no premeditated plans prior to the film’s announcement), it is important to know what to expect, not because there is any sense of unpredictability to this film, but rather the complete opposite – this is an example of a film delivering exactly what it offers on the packaging, almost to its detriment. I am never a proponent of any form of art that conceals its true meaning for nefarious reasons, but there is always something interesting about a work that claims to be about one concept, but is actually much deeper and more profound than the viewer was initially led to expect. Affleck is a competent filmmaker, and perhaps has been circling around being a genuinely great one for some time now, and it seems like he is on the precipice of making something that actually carries a sense of artistic integrity, rather than just being based on buzzwords and brief concepts, which does remind us of the sincere promise he showed with his first two features, with Gone Baby Gone and The Town seemingly signalling a truly fascinating directorial voice, but which was deafened by more bombastic productions in later years. After half a decade since he last stepped behind the camera, Affleck chooses to take on the story of Sonny Vaccaro, a mild-mannered but spirited marketing executive whose ambition and drive to succeed allowed him to make the revolutionary proposal that would eventually turn into the production of the Air Jordan line of sneakers, one of the most profitable ventures in the world of shoewear, and a game changer for the history of sports promotion, based on the involvement of a young Michael Jordan, long before he was crowned arguably the greatest professional athlete in history. It all amounts to a film that is competently made but still quite flawed for reasons that are difficult to pinpoint, leading to quite a frustrating but still passable effort that rarely shows much interest in meeting its potential.

In theory, the story behind Air is indeed quite fascinating – even beyond this specific subject, the history of Nike, and how Phil Knight, affectionately known as the “Shoe Dog” is a masterclass in taking a business from obscurity to one of the most profitable in the industry. The reason this film feels so uneven is it never comes across like it genuinely understands how to tell this story, or the specific approach it wanted to take. The focus of the story is never made explicitly clear – on a purely narrative level, Vaccaro is arguably the most important character, and the film does revolve around his efforts to achieve the impossible, but there are simply too many characters woven into the fabric of this film for that to be all that impactful, especially when nearly everyone else is far more interesting than the protagonist, who is deeply likeable but not particularly alluring on a conceptual level. The film also isn’t quite sure about what it specifically was aiming to be – on a broader level, it is caught between comedy and drama in a way that you’d think would be deliberate, until you come across yet another overly dramatic scene that feels like it either was placed there for a specific reason that is never made clear, or the result of shoddy editing that failed to consistently gauge the tone of the film. Even on a more intricate level, the film fumbles when it comes to trying to market this towards a specific audience – it seems to be an unavoidable truth that there are far fewer people who care about the trials and tribulations of the shoe industry, which would have been the perfect opportunity for Air to enrich the narrative by exploring other themes within this narrative – yet, whether it is the screenplay by Alex Convery or the direction by Affleck that diminishes this potential, we constantly find ourselves yearning for something slightly more nuanced, if not entirely overhauled and rebuilt from the foundation upwards, with a more concise and meaningful perspective.

Looking at Air not only theoretically but in practice, we find that it is really just a collection of scenes strung together by a broader narrative, but which doesn’t feel cohesive in the way that it would have it understood specifically where to take this material. This was the first screenwriting effort for Convery, who seems to have a sincere passion for this story, but whose inexperience comes through so often in the writing, it eventually becomes an impediment to the film as a whole, since the script is filled with non-sequiturs, the humour is often quite uneven and the overall experience just comes across as being the work of someone who decided to cobble together a screenplay based on his personal admiration for a story rather than working from a place of more objectivity, which is a sacrifice that is usually best left for those who are either established enough to take some risks, or those with more ambitious ideas that a biographical drama about the production of a shoe and the business dealings that surrounded it. There were so many different avenues that this film could have explored, and to his credit Affleck does as much as he could to make this lacklustre screenplay more interesting than it was, whether it be through curating a stellar soundtrack, or choosing some film-specific details to hopefully elevate material that is not bad, just quite dull and lifeless on a conceptual level, and it never manages to break free of those restrictions, outside of a few moments of inspiration that are peppered conservatively throughout this film. It is never a good sign if the conversation after a film begins to veer towards discussing ways in which the story could have been done better, and we learn that an entire reconfiguring of the central narrative (which here would mean emphasizing the rivalry between Nike and Adidas, a far more interesting idea that isn’t even that too far-fetched of a concept based on how the film is structured) would have benefitted not only this specific storyline, but enriched the entire production, making it far more three-dimensional than the final product, which is both lacklustre in vision, and starkly adherent to the idea of capitalism as the ultimate solution, rather than a system that has flaws in itself.

You might at least imagine that based on his stature and the frequent ability to draw out solid performances from his actors that Affleck would have assembled a very competent cast that would elevate the material. For the most part, this is true – one can never accuse Affleck and his team for going for the low-hanging fruit when it comes to putting together the cast, since Air consists of quite a solid group of actors. Whether it is Damon in the leading role (in the first instance of Damon being directed by Affleck, despite their decades-long friendship), or major supporting parts by Jason Bateman, once again trying to shed his persona of being solely a comedic actor for a more nuanced role, or the deeply underrated Matthew Maher, one of our most interesting journeyman actors that feels like he is teetering very close on a major breakthrough. The film is almost entirely stolen by Viola Davis, who enters midway but turns in such a strong performance, we have to wonder if Air may have been better had they put in the effort to bring her in earlier. We can speak about Barbara Sukowa in a similar way, since despite having exactly 45 seconds of screentime (which is wildly inappropriate for an actor of her stature and talent), her character indicates one of the multitudes of alternative storylines this film could have focused on without it becoming an exercise in persistence. Naturally, Affleck does cast himself in the film, but rather than taking one of the more notable characters (such as the one played by Bateman), he instead chooses to play Phil Knight. He is a fascinating figure, but one that is not essential to the story – if the intentional elision of Michael Jordan was a narrative choice, the same could have been done for Knight, who is more of a concept than a person in the context of this film. Regardless, Affleck is having fun with the role, leaning into the real-life businessman’s inherent eccentricities, and proving the long-held belief that he is just a character actor born into the body of a movie star, and Affleck’s recent move towards playing more bizarre characters is a good choice, since all of his best work has come when he has taken some risks, and while he is far from the best part of Air, he does bring it a necessary level of nuance, which is very impressive on its own.

Air is not a particularly great film, but it is far from bad, occupying a comfortable position squarely in the middle. It even feels inappropriate to call it mediocre, since this suggests that it wasn’t putting in any effort or didn’t reach its goals, both of which are objectively untrue, since this film seems to be achieving exactly what it set out to do. The problem is instead embedded deep within the conception of the film as a whole – Air simply does not know what it wants to be, and it is perpetually struggling to find its voice, despite being quite clearly a film that has some strong ideas. Ultimately, this is a film that is designed to be broadly entertaining, with the lighthearted tone and seemingly accessible story distracting from the very real fact that this is a film about a group of ordinary men working for a struggling business working together to create a shoe in the hopes of courting a steadily-rising young athlete. It is not riveting in theory, and the final product is not anything particularly special either, and it may be a challenge to find the target demographic for a film like this, since the most obvious choices would be those with a vested interest in banking and shoewear, which are notable endeavours in terms of economic discussion, but are dreadfully dull when it comes to the process of actually telling a story that means something or has any real sense of direction. Air is a decent effort, but is easily Affleck’s weakest film as a director (even Live By Night had its endearing peculiarities), and just doesn’t tell a story that is all that compelling, at least not in the sense that we are positively bursting to see the direction in which it goes. It is a relatively solid but otherwise merely serviceable effort that proves some stories are best kept as anecdotes rather than being formed into two-hour-long narratives, especially since there is nothing in this film that we could not glean from a brief glimpse into the well-documented story that inspired this film, proving that not every real-life event should necessarily be afforded the cinematic treatment, especially one as one-dimensional as this passable effort.