“Air” - Happy feet.

Now that we are into the beginning of the blockbuster season, we have a lot to choose from. Super Mario, John Wick, Adonis Creed, Ghostface, and a Dungeons and Dragons party are all vying for our attention. Would you believe me if I told you your best option is none of those, but instead Air - a movie about a shoe? Not just any shoe though. Air Jordan shoes.

You’re probably wondering how it’s possible to spend two hours on a historical footnote without putting an audience to sleep. Step one is pick a footnote related to arguably the most famous athlete in history (Michael Jordan). Step two is spice up that footnote with some snappy dialogue and good pacing. Step three is write a screenplay that adds a bit of suspense without changing the real story too much. Step four is cast some A-list actors that have done this type of movie before. Step five is sit back, kick your feet up, and enjoy the show.

Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) works in the basketball apparel division of Nike in 1984. At the time, Nike was mostly known for running shoes and was running a very distant third to Adidas and Converse in the basketball shoes world. Sonny’s main role is to identify up-and-coming rookies and convince them to sign endorsement deals for shoes. As a basketball savant, Sonny travels to high schools and colleges as a kind of scout, while also digesting countless hours of film.

After a frustrating spit-balling meeting at the office trying to decide which three players to split a measly two hundred fifty thousand on, Sonny goes home to a night of microwave dinner and more film. While watching footage of the 1982 NCAA championship, he realizes how truly different and remarkable is Michael Jordan. The next morning, Sonny tracks down his boss, Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), pitching him the idea of spending the entire budget to sign Jordan. Remember, this isn’t the mythical Jordan of the 1990s, it’s the rookie Jordan drafted third in 1984, after second pick Sam Bowie.

The film kicks into high gear at this point. Not only does Sonny have to convince Rob, but he must also convince his colleague Howard White (Chris Tucker), Nike’s CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), Jordan’s agent David Falk (Chris Messina), Jordan’s mother Deloris (Viola Davis), and, of course, Jordan himself. We follow Sonny on calls and cross-country trips as he tries to sell the idea to each of these people, Sonny does and says everything he can as the clock ticks down on Jordan’s decision. Despite the fact that we all know how history turned out, the screenplay is so well-written and performances so convincing that we believe it possible that Sonny could fail in his quest.

While it’s easy to see that Damon and Davis are the stars of the movie, there are a couple of scenes where they really shine. Damon’s best scenes are those where Sonny is conversing with Falk, first trying to get a meeting with Jordan, then another where Falk is livid at Sonny for going around him to talk to Deloris. Davis’s best scenes are those where she is talking with Sonny, each time putting Sonny in his place and on the defensive. As good an actor as Damon is, Davis’ poise and delivery is so good it pushes Damon to step up his game even more.

In addition to Air being a highly engrossing film, it managed to teach me a little history while enticing me to do more research on the topic. I now know about the NBA’s previous rules for shoe color, potential fines for wearing “illegal” shoes, the location of Nike’s headquarters, that Deloris was instrumental in orchestrating Jordan’s then-present and future worth, and that even then Nike’s reputation regarding labor was suspect. It’s the kind of movie that I would definitely walk into again.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, including for those shoes.

“Deep Water” - That’s definitely not a candy bar floating in the pool.

One of the first things they teach students in screenwriting class is to write a sympathetic protagonist so the audience has someone to root for. Apparently, the writers of Deep Water - Zach Helm and Sam Levinson - missed that week of class because every character in Deep Water is a character you’d like to see drown in a toilet. This includes Trixie, the adolescent daughter of loathsome couple Vic and Melinda Van Allen (Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, respectively). To be fair, Helm and Levinson adapted a novel of the same name written way back in 1957, but even if the characters are shits in the book, at least one of them could have been modified for the movie to make them, you know, not shits. Ooh, maybe that’s the twist - we’re supposed to root for the deep water.

(SPOILERS - Not even Disney cares if this movie gets spoiled. They removed it from opening in theaters and sent it straight to Hulu.)

Vic and Melinda have a marriage best described as “huh?” We first meet Vic setting his bicycle against the front door of his house, then turning to look up at Melinda. Melinda is sitting halfway up a staircase, mumbles something to Vic, then gets up and disappears up the stairs. Vic begins to follow her, then abruptly turns into another doorway halfway up the stairs. Clearly, these two are not on good terms. Maybe it’s because Vic is retired after having invented the chip in drones that finds and kills people and being “rich as fuck” to quote his friend Grant (Lil Rey Howery). Or maybe it’s something else.

Adding to their misery is Trixie, whom Melinda appears to hate, but only when she notices Trixie in the same room with her. Vic doesn’t hate Trixie, but doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about her either. More like he tolerates her while going through parenting motions like giving her a bath or taking her to school. And what did Trixie ever do to them? I mean besides ignoring Melinda’s pleas to stop telling Alexa to play the same song over and over at ear-splitting volume and, asking Vic if he murdered Melinda’s boyfriends and hinting that she might not keep it to herself? I mean, can you blame Trixie? What kind of asshole parents intentionally name their daughter Trixie?

I know what you’re thinking...what song? And, yes, you read that correctly - Melinda’s boyfriends are not a secret to Trixie. Nor are they a secret to Vic. In fact, he is well aware of them, apparently even condoning them. After the first couple of scenes, we meet Melinda’s current boyfriend, Joel (Brendan C. Miller), at a party at Grant’s house. Joel literally thanks Vic for being so cool about inviting him into their home and letting him have a relationship with Melinda. Since I had not read the film’s synopsis, nor had the trailers even hinted at this, I was confused and intrigued at the same time. All I knew was the film was billed as an erotic thriller, so my brain immediately starting coming up with different sexual fantasies and situations that could explain this setup, plus what kinds of scenes we were about to witness. Then, Vic proceeds to scare the shit out of Joel by telling Joel that he murdered the last guy that Melinda had a relationship with.

Unfortunately, this was the high point of the story. At that precise moment in the film, I thought the eventual reveal would be Vic and Melinda’s relationship was based on the two of them getting off on Vic watching Melinda screw other dudes, then murdering said dudes, then Vic and Melinda having raw, animal, Earth-shattering sex on the corpse of her lovers. It wouldn’t be the first Affleck film to feature that kind of disturbing sex (Gone Girl). Not only was I wrong about their relationship, but the film was neither erotic nor a thriller.

Turns out, Vic just doesn’t want a divorce, so he tolerates his wife fucking every hot dude that comes along. Why, you ask? Beats me. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be like Ross from Friends. Maybe Melinda is the best lay in the history of mankind. Maybe he just wants to go Soylent Green on these dudes and feed them to his pet snails. Yes, he actually has pet snails. Don’t all retired engineering geniuses with hot, unfaithful wives have pet snails? The point is we don’t know because the film doesn’t ever tell us how they got to this point in the first place.

And now you see where the writing utterly lets down the viewer. Melinda and Vic have no motivation we are ever made aware of to explain this bizarre situation. We don’t know what led Melinda to the point where she is banging other men nor how she feels about Vic at all. We are quite literally introduced to her staring daggers at Vic, then indiscreetly having sex with other dudes...in her and Vic’s home...while Vic is in the house. Ordinarily, this behavior would make us sympathize with Vic. Except, we don’t because Vic is at first okay with Melinda’s behavior, then dances one time with a friend, Kelly (Kristen Connolly), at a party but it’s totally innocent - even though we are absolutely rooting for him to get naked with Kelly, not just because of Melinda, but because Kelly’s husband is an ass hat - then plays with his snails a bit, then becomes jealous to the point of actual murder. The only sympathy we have at this point is for the snails having to put up with this shriveled sac of a human.

Now I see why Disney opted to bury this movie. Not only is it full of boring and terrible human beings, but the film didn’t even have the decency to throw in the erotic part of erotic thriller. There is one sex scene between Vic and Melinda that makes us feel the opposite of a horny and another scene in which we see Melinda’s tits while Vic is helping her drunken ass crawl into bed. And I use the word tits instead of breasts because using the word breasts would indicate I have any kind of respect for this double-flusher of a film.

Rating: Not even worth the toilet paper it was written on.

“The Way Back” - Yellow-bellied and lily-livered.

The last time I played organized basketball, I was a sophomore in high school. Our team sucked. We finished the season 1-11, mostly due to the fact that we were playing against teams featuring kids who could dunk (we could not), but also the fact that our coach was an idiot. He seemed to believe that substitutions were pointless, leading to a starting five who were gassed well before halftime. Plus, that one win happened the one time when that coach was out of town. Want to guess how much subbing happened that game (it also helped that they were the only other team in the league without any kids capable of dunking)? The Way Back reminded me a lot of that season, making me think that maybe we, too, could have been state champions if only an alcoholic, former high school star could have coached us.

(SPOILER ALERT - I am going to ruin a lot of this movie for you to explain how much of a chickenshit was this film.)

Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) was a high school basketball phenom. Now, he is a forty-year old, alcoholic construction worker, separated from his wife, and still living in his home town. Everyone in town knows who he is and everyone in town knows he is a drunk. One night, he hears a voice mail from his old high school that the head priest would like to talk to him. He goes to the meeting and is offered the head coaching position of the basketball team (it is mid-season) because the previous coach had a heart attack. Somehow, the priest is unaware that Jack is a drunk, evidenced by the priest not mentioning it during their conversation. A completely irresponsible priest was the first clue that something was wrong with this movie.

Jack does not want the job, but, like all Catholics, the priest guilts Jack into thinking it over for the night. Jack goes home and starts plowing his way through a 24-pack of beer, running through various amalgamations of turning down the offer. He eventually passes out, wakes up the next morning, and decides to take the job. Because all good decisions are made on a hangover.

Even I can smell the alcohol.

When Jack arrives at the school, he is greeted by the assistant coach, Dan (Al Madrigal), and introduced to the team. Like all sports movies, we get a quick summary of the one thing that each player does well, which will probably come in handy in the eventual climactic game. The first couple of games do not go well, Jack does far more cussing than coaching. During one bus ride, Father Whelan (Jeremy Radin), reminds Jack that they do not allow cussing, and Jack retorts with “With all of the terrible things happening around the world, do you really think God gives a shit that I’m cursing around these boys?” To which Father Whelan replies “Yes. I do think God gives a shit.” I was intrigued by this exchange because it implied that Jack had lost his faith, which was probably the same reason he was a drunk.

After another demoralizing loss, Jack gives one of the kids - Brandon (Brandon Wilson) - a ride home. They chat for a bit and we learn that Brandon is getting scholarship offers to play college basketball, but hasn’t been telling his dad because his dad does not want him to put his hopes in basketball. This is later confirmed by the dad himself, which makes no sense in any context. It’s not like Brandon is hoping to get a scholarship to play ball; he already has them. Yet, his dad does not want him to go to college for free? Huh? This was the second clue that this movie was not well thought-out.

Dads, am I right?

We also learn during the chat with Brandon that Jack had a full scholarship to Kansas, but turned it down because Jack’s dad only showed Jack love when Jack excelled at basketball. Like with the cussing conversation with Father Whelan, this bit of information seems like it will be woven into Jack’s relationship with Brandon, so we keep watching this movie. After Jack drops off Brandon, he heads to the bar, but decides not to go in (there was also an exchange with Dan about Dan finding beer cans in the coach’s office). The combination of Jack stopping drinking (presumably) and the conversation with Brandon leads to the team turning things around. They start winning, leading to a showdown with the best team in the state. This leads to the biggest clue that this film was just not good - the big game.

I will not spoil the game for you, but it ends at the 75-minute mark of a 108-minute film. Uh, what? A few minutes prior to this, we learn why Jack was a drunk. His son died of cancer two years earlier at age seven. Yeah, you would drink and moon God, too, if that was your life. Shortly after the big game, he gets a call from his estranged wife (Janina Gavankar) that their best friend’s son is in the hospital, also with cancer (we are left to assume this is how Jack knows the family). They visit the hospital and Jack loses it, fleeing and heading directly to the bar. Not only does he fall off the wagon, he falls off multiple wagons. This causes him to be late to practice the next day and he shows up reeking of booze. Dan and the good priest confront him later that day and Jack is fired on the spot. Jack goes back to the bar, lather, rinse, repeat, drunk-driving accident, accidental break-in, beating, hospital, rehab, the end.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck. Well, maybe God cares more about basketball than cussing or I shouldn't still be standing here.

As you can see, this film is not a redemption story, despite all of its marketing trying to trick you into thinking it is. It worked on me. I thought it was going to be Hoosiers: Now Featuring Cell Phones. I have never seen a movie bring up so many topics, then run away from them in terror. Dealing with childhood cancer, alcoholism, losing one’s faith, alienating your family, dad issues - all are given lip service and all could have easily been threaded together to form a powerful story of a man confronting his demons. At no point during this entire film does any character attempt to talk to Jack about his loss, let alone prod him to deal with it. Not even his sister (Michaela Watkins), who can only manage to make mildly snide comments and disapproving glances.

When the movie was over, I tried to think of what it was trying to tell us, but nothing is there. It wants you to believe in redemption, except it blows that wad before the third act. It wants you to think it’s about making people better, except it isn’t even interested in making its own main character better. It wants to say something about alcoholism, but can only manage to say the most obvious thing - alcoholics tend to be very self-destructive. A cynic might say it’s nothing more than a human story; that humans are flawed and weak and will inevitably fail everyone around them. That may be true, but that’s a shitty message for a sports movie (or any movie, really). Any way you look at it, this film fails to tell a compelling story, hiding in the shadows from its own topics, while simultaneously depressing the shit out of the viewer. In other words, chickenshit.

Rating: Ask for all but one dollar back and try not to dwell on your own terrible childhood coaches.