Air is a terrific movie with a particularly great jerk for a villain

Films invite audiences to look at the experiences and perspectives of people who are very different than them. Art can be viewed as an opportunity to reflect on the human condition through this process of contemplation. You can also spend some time with your loved ones by watching movies. CompleteYou can be happy and not let it ruin you day.

Air, the new film about the creation of Nike’s Air Jordan line of sneakers, features one of the best movie assholes you’re likely to see this year. It’s a sports business movie, the perfect forum for showcasing assholes, and it’ll be hard to top Chris Messina’s performance as the volatile agent David Falk.

Falk is the real-life sports agent who represented Michael Jordan at the start of his career, when he was a promising but unproven player for University of North Carolina’s basketball team and about to join the Chicago Bulls. David Falk is the true David Falk. His career was full of missteps, but David Falk is still in it. AirA delightful and charming jerk, who lightens up whenever he comes to swear on a telephone.

Photo: Ana Carballosa/Amazon Studios

Falk’s Chris Messina (whom some viewers may be familiar with) Birds of PreyOder Sharp ObjectsThe following is a list of ). Air’s de facto antagonist, a brick wall for the movie’s hero, Nike talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) to throw himself against. Sonny is trying get Jordan to sponsor the 1984 Nike version, which is far less sports-sneaker giant it is today. Air portrays Vaccaro as an “athletes are magical” true believer stuck in a marketing department full of people just trying to keep the company in the black. It follows him as he tries to convince everyone to embrace the radical-in-1984 idea of putting the company’s entire weight behind one athlete, and designing a shoe that can be branded with his name.

One person AirJordan does not appear in the feature. Vaccaro instead has to contend with people who represent Jordan, like Falk and, later, Jordan’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis). This is Air’s most divisive aspect, as the wheeling and dealing between Vaccaro, Falk, and others centers around the idea of labor, and how much that labor is worth to the worker and the corporation eager to exploit it. This is a brief overview of AirYou could see it as corporate propaganda. A hagiography for wealthy executives and marketers who want to secure their legacy on the shoulders of one of the most iconic basketball players in history. It could also be seen as a sarcastic tribute to Vaccaro (movies such as this almost). Only celebrate guys) who go with their gut and are met with unprecedented success, in spite of all the doubters around them who rightly say they’re being reckless.

But AirPerhaps it’s about more. For all Falk’s bluster in representing Jordan — and truly, Messina does a fantastic job of blustering, wearing the phones he shouts into about as well as his impeccably tailored suits — he doesn’t know what he has in his client. Falk and almost every character in the movie are a disappointment to him. AirMichael Jordan, except for Deloris Jordan & Sonny Vaccaro is a paycheck. Uncertainty pervades AirHe offers a little bit of irony, which director Ben Affleck enjoys. Every moment, he plays up his irony in letting the audience know that his characters are debating about the viability of basketball’s most famous player.

Photo: Ana Carballosa/Amazon Studios

These characters debate what the athletes should get for their labor while all of them are on TV. Air breezily juxtaposes its conflicts against the era’s massive commercial successes. The soundtrack is constantly populated by pop hits like Run-DMC and Bonnie Tyler. A variety of brands are featured on the screen and appropriate commercials are played. Alex Convery, a first-time screenwriter presents an image of monoculture driven by corporates at its peak. This is just as the industry was about to find one of its greatest figuresheads. AirThis movie shows how difficult it can be to create a hit. Anything, and an elegiac tune for a present-day pop-culture landscape where nothing is ever likely to land as hard as the 1980s’ major touchstones again.

This movie is remarkable because of the unique way that every character acts. Air who isn’t named “Jordan” is just guessing. David Falk is an asshole because he’s decided that the only way to get results is to treat every client as an excuse to shake people down for money, so he can increase his personal clout and wealth. Sonny Vaccaro wins, but he also spends a lot of money. Air’s run time as an inveterate gambler in Jerry Maguire mode, forever a day away from washing out, neglecting his health and personal life to chase hunches that, he’s repeatedly told, have never panned out.

For 112 minutes, white men with money are depicted spending much of their time convincing themselves and others that they can spot where the culture is going, when it’s clear they can’t, because their primary mandate is safeguarding their wealth. In his least sympathetic moment, Vaccaro squirms at Deloris’ confident negotiations to get Michael part of the gross sales on the shoes bearing his name. He knows that just isn’t how things are done. In the sneaker business of the era, athletes are paid a licensing fee for their endorsement, and the profits are for the company — which the execs argue is the true source of value.

Image: Amazon Studios

Vaccaro is blindly loyal to the precedent of this inequitable structure, and he balks at the thought of upending it — even telling Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck himself) that he lost the Jordan deal. Vaccaro is surprised when Knight takes Deloris’ condition seriously, and in a moment of fourth-wall-breaking irony, Knight later muses that he may have set a precedent that upends the industry.

With passionate arguments and outlandish speeches AirIt shows how companies can become culture by grafting themselves on to it. This is where genuine faith and magic are combined with commerce’s machinery and the exploitative nature of the industry. It’s a meat grinder built primarily to benefit men like David Falk and Phil Knight, and any windfall gained by the young Michael Jordans of the world is secondary at best. As men with wealth arm themselves with confidence and brilliance, they hope to seek out someone with the ability to make people believe in them again.

Air ultimately condemns Falk — at least as much as it’s capable of condemning anyone — by making the character almost wholly extraneous to the history the film adapts. It’s Sonny Vaccaro and Deloris Jordan, the movie’s true believers, who move the needle and marry Nike’s corporate success to Michael Jordan’s incredible career. As a tremendous asshole, Falk makes for a great scapegoat, but he’s also an honest asshole; Deloris is the only character in the film who isn’t trying to exploit Michael. Ultimately, they’re all assholes whose careers depend on people not knowing what they’re worth.

AirYou can see it in the theaters right now.