An excerpt from my script review for Air (2023) which will be available 04/11/23:
2.) Plot Stability
Remember the Steve Jobs project by Aaron Sorkin?
This script kind of felt like that.
It was good, but it really only follows maybe two weeks in the life of Sonny trying to save the basketball portion of Nike.
Everything happens so quickly.
And that’s not bad by any means, but when you consider the trailer, it feels like it consists of months and months of labor and love.
But, as in good storytelling, the writer isn’t wasting our time and in turn we’re enjoying the read.
That’s important!
So essentially the gist is this…
The basketball division of Nike is losing money.
Converse is at the top, signing players like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
Adidas is up and coming.
Nike is…maybe a distant third?
Their strategy each year is to divide whatever budget they get among whatever 3 “star” players are left over by their competition, and hope that the investment pans out.
So far it hasn’t.
At first, Michael Jordan isn’t even in their ballpark…
(Ha! Michael Jordan baseball pun!)
That is until Sonny watches another highlight film of him, and is convinced they should go all in on Jordan.
And their pitch will be unique…giving Michael his own shoe line with Nike.
The trick will be convincing him that Nike can be cool, a challenge that plagues the company with younger demographics.
The main plot follows Sonny after he makes this decision, going against better judgment in most the story, like reaching out to Michael’s mom and dad directly, bypassing the agent.
It’s here though that he gives Mrs. Jordan one key question to ask both Converse and Adidas in regards to her son’s future.
With Converse, how are they going to differentiate Michael from their other All Stars?
And Adidas, who exactly is in charge now that founder Adi has passed away?
We get brief shots of the corporate meetings, and they play out exactly how Sonny says they will.
With him planting the seed that Michael Jordan will be Nike’s one and only, getting his very own shoe, Sonny wins his meeting.
And from here you can probably guess how it plays out.
My one, and I hesitate to even call it this, disappointment was that we didn’t get more on how one of the most iconic shoes of all time was created.
There’s a few hints dropped here and there, but for the most part is suddenly just was because this skateboarder with a cowboy hat ate a cupcake.
Would have been cool to see more of why they chose what they chose.
Want EARLY access to our videos, uploads, and movie/script reviews? Members get them FIRST! Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
