HIM Review
Beautiful, but shallow.
Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) is a football prodigy, slated to be the next GOAT quarterback. But after a freak attack leaves him out of the combine, he thinks his career might be over. Current GOAT, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) invites him to his compound for a week long training camp, promising that if he does well there, White will usher him in as his own replacement QB for his team - a team on a huge winning streak. But when Cade gets there, it turns out not everything is as it seems.
HIM is marketed heavily as a Jordan Peele film, and while perhaps the erstwhile producer has a modicum of his fingerprints on this project, this moniker ultimately does this film a disservice - as HIM is neither as strong, nor as thought out, as one of the modern master storytellers.
Instead, director Justin Tipping gives us a film that is as shallow and nascent as it is beautiful; a movie that is all about the moments. Perhaps, in some way, the pursuit of that glory and the ultimate hollowness of it is a strong mirror between director and character, as this football God-to-be finds not all is as it is cracked up to be in the big leagues.
The film is gory and violent in equal spades, but never really transgresses over to horror proper. Thriller might be a better moniker, but even then you’d need some real thrills. Here, everything is parsed out so slowly and so obviously, that even the jump scares never succeed in making you jump. In the end, the big final bloody sequence feels not only hollow, but comically gore-stricken, almost like watching a Scary Movie.
It’s when it’s tackling the actual football that HIM is at its strongest. That is in no small part down to Marlon Wayans, who really gives everything to his performance. He’s definitely playing the sort of calm-to-crazy in the blink of an eye role that has been done before, but it’s a fresh look for him and he does admirably. Tyriq Withers also does well as the lead, although in a role that requires little of him other than being the straight man.
Ultimately, this is a film that dies on the strength of its plot. As the first two acts try and set up some sort of mystery, and do a serviceable job of it, the complete banality and under-served momentum of the final act completely undercuts the film’s gravitas. Ultimately, the fact that it doesn’t deliver anything fresh doesn’t necessarily detract from its watchability, as the film is both beautifully shot and also inventively set-decorated and art designed, but the fact that it is good looking and somewhat interesting in the first half doesn’t mean it can overcome the run up to the end zone.
