Movie review: Air: Nike and Michael Jordan revolutionize sports marketing
Sports idols have become famous for what they dominate, but also commercially, the merchandising that is on the market reaches all kinds of fans, cards, balls, t-shirts, posters, notebooks, sports shoes, and even autographs, many of them They are listed in thousands of dollars depending on who it is.
During the decade of the 80s and 90’s this became very popular in the taste of locals and strangers, within the collection there are thousands of items, the most popular being those of celebrities such as Michael Jordan, a businessman and basketball player who is considered the best player of basketball of all time, he played fifteen seasons in the NBA winning six championships with the Chicago Bulls.
His story has been told several times already, but what about the Nike Air sneakers that were very popular? Actor and director Ben Affleck bring the story behind a logo and what is behind this multi-million dollar business to the big screen.
What is the film about?
This film aims to reveal the incredible association between then-rookie Michael Jordan and the fledgling basketball division of Nike athletic shoes, which revolutionized the world of sports and contemporary popular culture with the birth of the Air Jordan brand and the basketball phenomenon. who would become the greatest player of all time?
It is admissible that we are dealing with commercial productions that sell brands, we have already seen it before with Lego and Nintendo, which have done the same, the pretext that it is known to new generations is no longer so credible, what is sought here is to bring to the market new consumers and keep those who are already with their most popular products and renew them to our times and modernity.
Air is not only a movie, it is also the commercial vision of a very popular product among the youth of almost 40 years, nostalgia plays a very important role in exploring a decade of great changes, a decade that has been cited in many other productions and referenced in others, the question we can ask ourselves now: Is it necessary to tell these kinds of stories? We can morbidly say yes, but we can say no, that there is no more originality in the stories.
In this case, things are very different, we already know from the beginning that the former Nike executive was successful, that Michael Jordan became a superstar and the best basketball player, and that Nike Air Jordans became the best-known sports shoe and coveted of all time, which led the brand to position itself as one of the most important worldwide for decades.
Air combines different elements, entertainment, how large corporations are managed, what is involved in creating a brand, drama, and comedy, each one of them arises in the time and way in which the events are supposed to have happened. things, being based on real events it also has a free field to modify certain aspects in its narrative structure and the development of characters, the latter bears the very particular stamp of Affleck that with little says a lot and that goes from complex to simple.
The script written by Alex Convery allows Affleck as director to tell the story of how the Nike company was able to reach an agreement with Jordan to create a shoe that represented him in that market and his future iconic character in a way that made us feel as if we, more than being fashionable, could also be part of that story all this sounds like a long-term commercial but it is not, it is the process from an idea to its final product, about those people who were very good at doing their work to create a multi-billion dollar industry like never before.
The beginning of everything is in the year 1984 and the Nike basketball subdivision and they know that this could change with a name, with a surname, the initial idea was to agree on the image of the product with several players, riskily the next move was for just one of them, why to spend thousands of dollars on multiple players if we can give all that money to just one? and Jordan came to change all that, most of the story lies in planning a project that includes director of marketing Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), executive Howard White (Chris Tucker), Jordan’s agent David Falk ( Chris Messina), the proud and overprotective mother of Jordan Deloris (Viola Davis) and finally Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) as the shoe designer.
The interesting thing to see here is all this process that takes us from the ideas and designs on paper to the laboratories where they are testing and manufacturing the product, the special characteristics it should have, the colors, the soles, the materials, the quality and an attractive logo for the market that was distinctive above all the others, that was easy to recognize and that encompasses in a general way what the company and the basketball star are.
During the fourth year in this decade Jordan was recruited by the Chicago Bulls at the beginning of his career, the treatment and respect that Nike gave him was a bet, although if we look at it in the retrospective of the movie Nike seemed to have had Good luck seeing in this player a high potential to develop, a commercial and economic element that could leave them with great profits and could captivate an audience that was going to make him their biggest star, everyone wanted to have something of their favorite characters and players, along with this came an avalanche of products for all tastes and ages.
One of the points discussed here is the fact that Jordan was a fan of the competing brand, Adidas, it was his mother who convinced him to go with Nike and listen to his proposal, along with this is the commercial war to cover as much as possible In a highly competitive market in which they had the advantage, this brand’s sports shoes were sold by the millions and that represented a very good position in the public that purchases them for their materials, styles, and designs.
The main objective of this film is to transmit both ideas at the same time, on the one hand, Nike as a developing company wants more economic growth in its different headquarters and divisions, and on the other hand to see the commercial agreements and what these million-dollar contracts consist of. , during this part, we can say that things go very slowly between I want and I don’t want that as spectators it can be tedious but everything has its reason for being and its why and we could ask ourselves why should we care to know all this? In commercial terms, some innovative aspects make those involved in the campaign of this project remarkable even if the player in question was not Michael Jordan and was some other celebrity that had nothing to do with the sports world, he might as well being a movie or music star, the result would be different and beneficial but nothing compared to what was done.
The above is seen through the vision of 2 characters, the first is Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), the Nike marketing executive, friend, and collaborator of the founder and executive director he was involved during the creation and founding of the company that now known primarily for its athletic shoes, however, she has a passion for basketball that goes beyond even those who work in that division and her convenient goal is to grow that division so that she is recognized by everyone and more than that. profitable that can be carried in your pocket.
The second is Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) the founder and CEO of Nike, a rather bold businessman but since his company went public he does not want to take unnecessary risks or bet on products that do not have the success he expects, His idea is to have a flagship product that is supposedly available to everyone.
The setting is the most faithful to the decade that it represents even in the smallest details, the wristwatches, the commercials, the television programs, the commercials, the costumes, and the filter that they use makes all of this feel as if we were watching a tape on VHS, as viewers we appreciate that movies like this advocate a very well done nostalgia, without being pretentious, what it seeks is to be showy and one more character.
In general terms, the tape is well told, this is not a tribute to Nike, to Jordan, to sports shoes, nor the players, nor the sport, nor to the time, it is a tribute to capitalism and mass consumerism, large corporations did the same with their products from toys, clothing, drinks, fast food, everything was made to be fashionable, eating in a certain place or wearing a certain brand of clothing made us belong to a group and be accepted for what we could consume, this is an accurate critique of a superficial lifestyle.
It is to be expected that a project like this based on actual events has its flaws, one of the main ones is the fact that it tries to honor a star player, one who never appears even as a cameo that was well worth it, it’s ridiculous to see that there is someone who represents him but that we never see and that we assume and take for granted that it is him, scenes from behind, they cover his face with a vase, the dialogues are very limited so that we cannot identify who is speaking it’s Jordan, this is justified by his producer and director that they couldn’t cast another actor out of respect, because no one is up to the task, so it’s simple, you bring the real one and present him to us in a film that mostly deals with him and it is what as spectators we want to see.
Another of the flaws in the very tricky script, the story presents corporations as if they were the best, the coolest, and there are no problems or consequences, they portray the fact that making money is good and is wonderful that boosting the image of a player brings more benefits to his career than to the company itself, there are very cheesy elements within his plot which betrays what he proposes, that there is nothing more important than professional ethics when doing multimillion-dollar businesses, everything here is very cool, between friends who will never betray each other, between friends who are supposedly going to share the profits equally, who will keep each of the agreements in force, who will treat their “exclusive” celebrity as more than that.
You cannot miss the moral discourse where friendship is more important than so many millions of dollars, creativity is more important and pleasing the faithful consumer, to have employees and collaborators happy to participate in this and other long-term projects within the company, that capitalism is not bad, that selling selling selling is not bad either as long as there is someone who can buy them, that all this is part of a world in which to be happy you have to be fashionable and consume, a message that it could be valid and believable if all this wasn’t a 112-minute commercial.
Air as a film and fiction project fulfills the task of entertaining rather than informing, it tells its story well and makes it credible but unnecessary in these times when good stories are needed that good directors can make, it seems that we are with the ” fashion” of the films that are great commercials for brands, we will see how Barbie The Movie is doing in this area, soon to be released.
The cast is made up of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker, and Viola Davis who represent these people doing a great job and I insist, the important presence of Jordan is missing, perhaps this would not have changed anything in its structure but something necessary to present.
The music composed by Mark Isham goes completely unnoticed in the face of the eighties hits by Dire Straits, Mike + The Mechanics, Bruce Springsteen, The Alan Parsons Project, Cyndi Lauper, REO Speedwagon, Tangerine Dream among others, it is understandable that in projects like this one that he portrays a past decade audiovisually is more important than the score.
In conclusion, Air is a good production that tries to recreate an important moment in the history of Michael Jordan and the Nike company that would change the way of doing marketing until our times, although this only remains something unnecessary but entertaining.
Air is already opening in movie theaters in our country.
