Hello everybody and welcome to a brand new review! For this one I will be taking a look at a brand new horror film produced by the great Jordan Peele. Him is from first time director, Justin Tipping, and caught my attention due to the fact that it is a football centric horror film with Marlon Wayans as the big bad. That is such a wild combination of ideas that I had to see for myself how this would turn out. I’ve quite liked what Peele has been involved with as a producer (the new Candyman, The Monkey, etc.) and I was curious as to what this newfound talent had in store. Was Him able to score a touchdown? Let’s jump right in and see how well this film played the game!
We follow one Cameron “Cam” Cade, a rising football star who has loved the sport since he was a kid and is training for the league combine. Things take a dark turn though, when he gets ambushed by someone in a goat costume one night while practicing and he ends up getting a severe head injury that could endanger his career. However, despite the risks, Cam ends up getting convinced by his manager to go and pursue the open quarterback position for the San Antonio Saviors. This also leads to him getting an offer from his quarterback idol, Isaiah White, to train him and see if he is a worthy successor. So, Cam heads to an isolated compound in the middle of the desert in order to train with Isaiah, when he will soon find out just how far he is willing to go to achieve greatness.
The idea of incorporating horror elements into a sports infused story is in and of itself a neat idea and one that I’m surprised hasn’t really been done at the studio level (at least I can’t think of many high profile examples). Tipping clearly has ideas he wants to explore through this lens such as the extent people will go to in order to achieve greatness and how much one is willing to sacrifice to get there and at what cost. These are all well and good and the potential is there for a compelling tale… this isn’t that. Tipping very clearly makes his intentions very known from the beginning, and then goes on to knock the viewer’s head over with those intentions like a sledge hammer in a way that gets noticeable and tiring VERY fast. It comes off as less of an exploration of it’s themes rather than someone re stating their thesis statement over and over again in a way that comes off as immensely surface level with little in the way of actual substance. The script is very weak, ranging from being extremely repetitive in parts to containing some truly awful dialogue that got some genuine laughs out of me, albeit mostly unintentional.
It often feels like Tipping is just throwing a bunch of stuff at the screen, without trying to connect them in a way that actually might be thought provoking and there is just such a large amount of vagueness permeating the entire film where there is often little that is actually explained as far was why things are happening, but this is the frustrating kind of vagueness as there ends up being little context provided the movie is so underdeveloped with it’s ideas anyway that it just felt like I was just watching random scenes stitched together with almost no solid storytelling foundation. It feels like there are so many scenes missing that could’ve served to build the characters or just make the plot more coherent that one wonders what went down in the editing room in post production. Plus, this is one of those movies that seems to tease some big reveals and shocking revelations, but then ends up going about the way one would expect with no surprises and an ending that feels both abrupt and unearned in equal measure. The football angle also really just there for aesthetic purposes as one could really change the sport involved up and not much would change, making for a real lack of any kind of specificity.
I’ll admit that Tipping at the very least has quite a bit of ambition when it comes to how he wants to present this story as there is a lot of style used here. He attempts to make things a psychedelic, throwing so much in the scenes of hallucination Cam feels throughout the movie and it can be fairly effective at times. He does a decent job showing the brutality of what Cam is going through with the use of montages actually being subverted in a dark manner that I kind of like and I think he succeeds in getting us into Cam’s uncertain perspective with some of the chaotic editing and use of X-rays to show the injuries that are being caused. Some of the imagery can be striking and get across the meanings and messaging, but the problem is Tipping overdoes it to an almost self parody level that it gets tiring real fast. I mean take a shot for every time some sort of symbolism connecting football to a religious cult is presented on screen and you’ll likely go down very quickly. That and so much of the movie is just Cam reacting to hallucinations and wild stuff going on that a lot of them lose any sort of impact due to a feeling of exhaustion that I felt just seeing things play out the same over and over. Plus, there are also some wonky bits of CGI, especially when a lot of gore is involved and some really noticeable ADR at times that do little to actually help the film.
If there’s one thing that I can praise about the film to an extent it is that the two lead performances are quite good and try their best with what they are given. Tyriq Withers is able to convey Cam’s confidence and uncertainty at this situation well and I think makes him into a fairly likable presence. Problem is, he is given some pretty terrible dialogue to work with so he can only do so much in terms of selling what’s on the page. Also, I think Cam’s arc is a solid one on the surface, the problem is, I didn’t think it went anywhere particularly interesting and I didn’t find his conflict of choosing which direction to go in particularly compelling especially as I don’t think there is enough at stake to make the audience invested in what his decisions mean. I’ll be honest, his familial relationships are kind of glossed over to the point where I forgot he had any (since we almost never leave the compound, it’s hard to get much of any sense of what’s going on outside) and by the end, while I can see where the filmmaker intended to pay off his arc, it all felt rushed and underdeveloped that it just didn’t land and is handled in such a way that it felt like a haphazard way to finish things off.
Given that he is more well known for comedy at this point in his career, it will likely be a surprise for many to see Marlon Wayans playing a more dramatic role, and if anything he is easily among the movie’s strongest suit. He is seamlessly able to switch from being a reserved and almost chill individual with a deeper secret still there inside of him to a fiery mentor whose rage and passion becomes an intimidation tactic and it showcases his range as an actor quite nicely. He is able to make Isiah into the most interesting character of the bunch as one kind of wants to know more about him, but he is very much a victim of what seems to be there being a bunch of material left on the cutting room floor (especially when you see how much better defined his character is in the original script). It’s a shame as Wayans gives it his all and works a villain and some of the best scenes of the film involve him and Tyriq having reflective conversations on their careers and who they are as people. It’s fairly compelling and I wish the rest of the movie had been just as interesting as these parts. The rest of the supporting cast is not focused in as much, but who we get don’t really do much. Julia Fox is only given a bit to do as Isiah’s girlfriend, Elsie, and that’s mainly to try and be a temptation for Cam. She goes for camp and I don’t think it fit with the vibe of the film and she also seems like a character that had more going on in a different cut. The only person I thought who stood out was Jim Jeffries as Isaiah’s doctor, Marco as someone who shows to question the line of work he chosen to deal in. Good performance and I liked seeing his perspective on this situation, despite his limited screentime. The other performances really did nothing for me as they came off as way too over the top or just flat out bad (especially when it comes to Tim Heidecker as Cam’s manager, Tom).
On the whole, I found Him to be a disappointing misfire that didn’t live up to its potential. While it has some interesting ideas, a couple of striking visual elements, and some very good lead performances, the way it goes about telling its story is repetitive and unengaging, it proclaims a lot without saying much, there are some wonky elements throughout, and some miscast performances. Considering all that was put into this project it’s a real shame that it turned out like this and I honestly can’t recommend it for much except for those who want to see something different from Wayans or are at least morbidly curious by the reviews. For me, it stands as one of the most disappointing releases of the year thus far and I hope that the next attempt to combine sports with horror turns out better.
Rating: D+
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