Air

Since Hollywood has been in existence, sports films have been a common staple genre. There are so many: "The Natural", "42", "Any Given Sunday", "Tin Cup", "A League of Their Own", "Leatherheads", "Knute Rockne All American", even "A Field of Dreams", to name a handful. Now, to add to that ever growing list is "Air" which is destined to be one of the best films this year.

This story reveals the unbelievable game-changing partnership between a then rookie Michael Jordan and Nike's fledgling basketball division which revolutionized the world of sports and contemporary culture with the Air Jordan brand. This moving story follows the career defining gamble of an unconventional team including Sonny Vacarro (Matt Damon), Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), Howard White (Chris Tucker) and designer of the shoe Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis) who knows the worth of her son's immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time.

Others to round out the cast are Chris Messina as David Falk, Julius Tennon as James Jordan, Michael's father, Damian Young as Michael Jordan, Gustaf Skarsgard as Horst Dassler and Barbara Sukowa as Kathe Dassler. 

This was directed with grit, amazing timing and incredible sequencing by Ben Affleck ("Gone Baby Gone" '07, "The Town" '10, "Argo" '12, "Live by Night" '16) plus a short and a video. While Affleck has only directed four films in the last sixteen years, those films are incredibly executed in such detail and quality that I can certainly understand. These films weren't slapped together to make a quick profit, and the finished product showed. This film falls into that same category whereas the pacing, staging and timing were spot on. Affleck, like other actors that have delved into, has become a director as well as acted in many films. And like some other directors, although he is a talented actor if given the right role, he has definitely found his niche as an extremely talented director. In my opinion, he's gotten to a place where if I see his name as director of a film, I will go see it just knowing that fact. His characters simply came alive in this, and even though the actors are very talented, it takes fine directing to encourage these actors to really get into their respective roles. If you like Affleck's brand of directing, both his "Witness for the Prosecution" and "The Lost Cities" are in development. It was brilliantly written by Alex Convery, a virtual newcomer to screenwriting. This guy has never written a feature film, TV show, short, video, etc, yet this was concise, cohesive, methodical and entertaining, all the while being informative about what actually happened with Nike and its team to bring them from the financial gutter. If this is the first screenplay Convery has created, I can't wait to see what he'll be writing next. 

If your a basketball fan, or Jordan fan, you'll love this, but even if the topic of basketball doesn't move you, the acting, directing and writing are amazing and makes the telling of this story that much more effective along with being entertaining for all.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                        Rated: R                                            111mins.