Air Stream

The Gist: It’s 1984, and this movie will remind you of that fact with its persistent soundtrack of the hits of the era. Cyndi Lauper, Night Ranger, Bruce Springsteen, Mike and the Mechanics, Run DMC – all covered, and then some. It opens with Dire Straits’ ‘Money for Nothing,’ which may be thematically appropriate, or might just sound cool and get us revved up, and doesn’t warrant any more thought than that. We see a montage of all kinds of Very Incredibly 1984 Things: Reagan, Where’s the Beef, breakdancing, Cabbage Patch Kids, VHS, Ghostbusters, Jane Fonda workout tapes… it goes on, and on, and on. Just a deluge. ‘Money for Nothing’ never felt so long. Anyway. We meet Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) in the bleachers of a high school basketball game. He works for Nike as a talent scout, hunting for badass basketballers for endorsement deals. It’s important to note that his flights back to Nike HQ in Oregon often include layovers in Vegas, where it’s established that the guy’s a gambler. He wins some and loses some. This movie is about him winning one. A big one.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there’s a lot of drama and witty dialogue to get through before Sonny lands his big fish. In the business of Big Basketball Shoe, Nike is in third place behind Table Time and Allied Biscuit. Er, I mean, Converse, who dominates the market, and Adidas. We meet the character Chris Tucker plays, and I’m not sure what his purpose here is besides us getting a chuckle out of Chris Tucker sharing scenes in a movie with Damon and Affleck. Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) banter-argues with Sonny about the basketball endorsement budget, which is miniscule. Nike is foremost a “jogging company,” and Phil has to answer to the board and then hop in his metallic-purple Porsche and drive home to take off his socks and shoes and do many hours of yoga or whatever. Very rich and very earthy, this guy.