Air gives us one of 2023’s finest movie assholes
Like so many different forms of art, movies invite viewers to contemplate the perspectives and experiences of those very different from them. Through this contemplation, this wrestling with intent and perspective, art illuminates the human condition, and perhaps allows an aficionado to grow and develop as a person. Movies are also a great way to spend a couple hours with a complete asshole and be delighted, instead of having it ruin your 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. The real David Falk has a storied career that may or may not have involved him being a complete prick, but the David Falk in Air is an absolutely delightful jerk who lights up the screen whenever he shows up to swear into a telephone.
As Falk, Chris Messina (whom viewers may know from Birds of Prey or Sharp Objects) is 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 to land Jordan as a sponsor for the 1984 version of Nike, which is far from the sports-sneaker behemoth 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
Read more on polygon.com
