As a director, Ben Affleck certainly knows how to craft an involving piece of storytelling. This factually based account of the behind-the-scenes wrangling that led to Nike – in 1984 still the uncool underdogs of the sports shoe industry – signing basketball player Michael Jordan is undeniably engaging. So much so that you almost forget you’re watching two hours of doughy, middle-aged men (in the Nike executive lead role, Matt Damon looks as though he was moulded out of pastry) sweating in boardrooms and slapping each other on the back.
But for all its affable charm, there’s something slippery and disingenuous about this film. It’s Jerry Maguire minus the moral epiphany – one of the most rapaciously consumerist movies ever made, dressed up as an egalitarian blow for the earning potential of sports stars. It references Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech but fails to give Jordan a voice – or even, for that matter, a face. The character is largely shown from behind; his parents (Viola Davis and Julius Tennon) speak for him. The thinking behind this, perhaps, is that Jordan at this point is still on the sidelines, waiting to take centre stage in one of the most successful sporting careers of all time. But by denying him a voice, the film turns him into little more than a commodity – a product to be marketed along with the shoes that bear his name.
