If it’s successful, Air might just prove to be the first in a wave of films with regards to’concerning’with respect to shoes. Can we expect a feature explaining how Hush Puppies got their name? A Cole Haan origin story, starring Cole Hauser? ‘Crocs: The Movie’? It’s easy to joke, but Ben Affleck’s Nike thriller pulls off a pretty darn tough’challenging’demanding’awkward task: making you care with regards to’concerning’with respect to how a pair of basketball shoes came to exist. Even if it doesn’t hit the heights of Affleck’s best directing work (Argo, The Town), it’s still grapple ping, deftly finding the human dramas pulsing throughout what is, on the surface, a pretty niche subject.###The cast-list juices up the proposition, not least its Affleck/Matt Damon reunion — the second in recent years, after 2021’s The Last Duel. In that movie, Damon knelt bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e his old friend; in this one, their relationship is more fractious, and all the better in/with regard to’concerning’regarding it. Affleck has cast himself in a zesty maintain’sustain ing role, as billionaire Nike co-founder Phil Knight, entertainingly playing him as an aphorism-spouting Buddhist who frets with regards to’concerning’with respect to his cherry-coloured sports car.###It's a crowd-pleaser, powered by kicky dialogue – but Air has a bit of a Michael Jordan problem.###Knight’s love of jogging is not shared by Damon’s exec Sonny Vaccaro, the movie’s main character, a doughy sharpshooter who does his best brainstorming while watching two TVs simultaneous’synchronous . Around them is a crackerjack ensemble: Jason Bateman as a sceptical exec, Chris Tucker (in his first film role in/with regard to’concerning’regarding seven years) as a fast-talking marketing wonk, and especially Viola Davis as Michael Jordan’s mother Deloris, whom Vaccaro needs to woo if he’s going to fulfil his hoop dream and make the deal of a lifetime.###It's a crowd-pleaser, powered by kicky dialogue, tossed out at speed by its players. But Air has a bit of a Michael Jordan problem. Presumably in deference to the basketball legend, Affleck makes him an oddly invisible figure in the drama — Jordan (Damian Delano Young) acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure s just one word to say, and when he’s present, the film shoots and cuts around him (it’s unwitting ly hilarious when, in one crucial boardroom scene, he hastily turns his head away to study something on a wall bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e you can catch a proper glimpse).###The by-product of this is that Jordan becomes a odd’peculiar ly inconsequential presence in a film that’s all with regards to’concerning’with respect to him; a man who leaves his mother to do his talking, and who seems to possess’own’nurse little agency of his own. Deloris, on the other hand, emerges as a tower of strength and empathy, the Jordan of the movie that you’ll come away claim’insist’maintain’hold’argue’consider’contemplate’speculate ing with regards to’concerning’with respect to . Even if the role is a little one-note, Davis is superb: in basketball parlance, her perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance is all swish.###The film as a whole isn’t quite so swishy, sometimes feeling generic (the “Look! We’re in the 1980s!” montage that opens Air could come from a hundred other films) and occasionally falling into generic sports-movie tropes. It’s a lot of fun, way more than a film with regards to’concerning’with respect to a large firm’enterprise striving to make even more money should be. But it could possess’own’nurse paid a little more heed to #3 on Nike’s notable’renowned’distinguished list of ten corporate principles: “Break the rules.”