'Air' review: Jordan barely sets foot in sneaker biopic

Something seemed to be missing from the first trailers for “Air.” There was Ben Affleck, as Nike founder Phil Knight. There was Matt Damon, as basketball scout Sonny Vaccaro. And there was Viola Davis as the mother of Michael Jordan, whose deal with the struggling shoe company in 1984 would help make him a billionaire, launch Nike into the sneaker stratosphere and change the entire concept of what athlete-branded apparel could do.

Notably absent: Jordan.

He’s nearly absent from the movie, too. Affleck, doubling here as director, has said Jordan is “too big” — too important, too iconic — to be reduced to a mere character. That seems an overly worshipful approach to a guy who co-starred with Daffy Duck in “Space Jam,” but Affleck commits to it fully: On the rare occasions he shows Jordan at all, he cuts his head out of the frame, turns him away from the camera or otherwise obscures his face. Jordan (played, at least bodily, by Damian Young) doesn’t speak, not even when addressed directly. Watching the Nike executives stammer and sputter in his silent presence, you’d think a burning bush had walked into their conference room.

When the story turns to more earthly concerns — namely money and marketing — “Air” is reasonably entertaining. The screenplay by first-timer Alex Convery is a sometimes snappy, sometimes gushy mix of “Jerry Maguire” and “Moneyball,” and the acting is fine. Damon takes center stage as Vaccaro, a habitual gambler who’s sick of making small-time shoe deals with middling rookies. Affleck's Knight is almost a figure of fun, a Porsche-driving Buddhist who nobody seems to take seriously. The excellent supporting cast includes Jason Bateman as sardonic marketing veep Rob Strasser, a show-stealing Chris Messina as rageaholic sports agent David Falk, and Matthew Maher as the late shoe designer Peter Moore, who pours his passion and sweat equity into the daringly sculpted Air Jordan. (“Maybe it’ll grow on me,” Knight says of the name.)

Jordan is said to have picked Davis to play his mother, Deloris, and the role is a big one, at least thematically. It’s Deloris who insists on a whole new profit-sharing deal for her son that will empower generations of athletes to demand a bigger portion of the millions earned by the athletic apparel industry. “You eat,” she tells Vaccaro, “we eat.”

Jordan has always seemed a genial, approachable celebrity, but “Air” presents him as distant, aloof, almost too awesome to comprehend. Damon’s Vaccaro delivers a boardroom ode to the young athlete that is so reverential, so groveling that even Ramses II might have asked him to tone it down. Jordan, without a word, simply stands up and walks away.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com