Air

Set in a time in America that now seems the most appealing of all, Air is a fresh entrepreneurial adventure with a maximally feel-good happy ending. It's not as funny or seductively amoral as The Wolf of Wall Street, nor does it reveal such an interesting curiosity as Moneyball did, but it’s still a skilfully directed and well acted true story of the American Dream. “Booorn in the USA!” (15/04/2023)

A feel-good sporty retro genre film with a good cast, great music, a clever script and a fun pace, which reminded me of Moneyball. The story may seem uninteresting at first glance, but it's simply an engaging and enjoyable flick from start to finish, with occasional humour. Nike did the best it could with this decision. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are excellent. 8/10. (22/05/2023)

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon still go well together even after all these years, friends and colleagues who have left behind a few decent films. Air is not easy on a global scale in terms of the subject matter. It is a film primarily for the USA and US viewers, who like this type of story, where you have losers, outsiders, humiliated and offended people who become heroes, a black family ruled by a mother, etc. etc. Of course, a huge applause must not be missing at a certain stage of the film, ideally at the end, which likely no American film could do without. Enough of the negatives, now the positives – despite a rather flat topic, it does not get boring even with a longer runtime, Viola Davis shines as always, Chris Tucker cracks jokes non-stop, and basketball has always been and will be an appealing sport for me. But such a strong Dream Team from the Barcelona Olympics will hardly ever be assembled again, it will always be hurting for that exceptional Michael Jordan... (03/04/2024)

Thanks to Viola Davis, Mama Jordan acts as the brilliant mastermind behind all the incredible hard work of a few eager white boys to feed off the fame of a future legend. Of course, it's been all about percentages all along, but the journey, full of the optimism of the 1980s, an appetite for work and a few... well, fuck it, Just Do It... is captivating. I wouldn't have expected a movie about the signing of a shoe contract to be this good, and I'm not only looking forward to watching it again, but I'm going to find where the nearest basketball shoe store is. Affleck and Damon give brilliant performances! They should get together more often. (25/05/2023)

Shortly before the screening began, I told my mates that Air would have to be a damn good film, because the story of how a pair of sports shoes became so successful was not interesting to me in the slightest. But fortunately, as the minutes passed , it turned out that it might not actually be thanks to Ben Affleck. Air is still about Sonny Vaccaro trying to talk Michael Jordan's family into signing a deal with a failing division of Nike, but in the end it's about something else entirely. About people who know they're mediocre and that their name will end up in obscurity a few years after their death, and they hope they can stand alongside the legends for a while. Affleck avoids pathos, knows how to lighten the drama with wit at the right moments and knows he can rely on the actors. He manages to perfectly evoke the atmosphere of the 80s (the opening credits are great), keep it civil and tell a seemingly ordinary story about small people who sensed a chance to do something special and be part of something big. A good film (05/04/2023)