ConnexionHim Review: A Flimsy Football Horror Movie
Put Jordan Peele’s name on the poster as a producer and you’re guaranteed butts in seats. However, Justin Tipping’s Him doesn’t have nearly the thematic ambition of the Peele-directed Nope and Get Out. The sports-centric thriller occasionally verges on horror territory, but it never tips over into the eerie (let alone the terrifying) despite numerous attempts. While it has a few fun visual flourishes, it’s a barely-competent movie, held together only by its lead performers who function less like MVPs and more like an injured athlete’s sports tape.
The film is at its most intriguing in its opening prologue, when tethered to reality, as it introduces legendary quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) and his fictitious team, the San Antonio Saviors. During a high-stakes game, White suffers a horrific injury as a young Cam Cade watches eagerly on TV, surrounded by Saviors merchandise. The boy’s military father points to White’s dangling leg and tells his son: “That’s what a real man looks like.” This no-pain-no-gain philosophy carries over into Cade’s adulthood, when he’s played by Tyriq Withers, as he rises to the rank of college prodigy. White, in the meantime, has not only recovered, but has become one of the most revered sportsmen of all time, setting up an impending rivalry between the young graduate and his hero.
As the prospect of Cade being drafted to the big leagues looms — which is to say, the notoriously litigious NFL, which is never mentioned by name — the film introduces a handful of strange, phantasmagorical happenings, like a rattling goalpost and an infinitely spinning ball. Cade, distracted by these oddities, is attacked one evening by a mascot figure, leaving him with scalp staples that resemble a football’s stitches. In spite of his injury and concussion (not to mention infinite pressure from the media), he perseveres, to the point that White handpicks him to train at his isolated ranch for a week-long bootcamp, even as rumors of Cade replacing the legend swirl.
It's here that the movie starts to break down. Cade’s arrival at White’s museum to himself reveals, at worst, an idiosyncratic celebrity ego. About two eerie things happen throughout the runtime, between a Saw-like scenario where Cade’s failures on an indoor field lead to a teammate gladly accepting physical punishment, and a White super-fan sneaking in to berate Cade for potentially replacing her idol. Everything in between smacks of half-baked conception. The hallways of White’s sprawling bunker are awash in shadow, but lurking in the darkness is only ever the occasional vision of a paparazzo, a likely outcome of Cade’s brain trauma.
As viewers, we’re left at an arm’s distance from Cade, so his visions aren’t so much dangerous as they are amusing, as they force anticipation for something more effective. The movie is filled with disconnected symbols of Christian and pagan significance, but apart from gestures towards the cult-like nature of American football fans, these don’t amount to much beyond fleeting texture. What’s most disturbing about Him is the actual football, which Tipping shoots like a visceral and uncomfortable display of aggression, emphasizing contact with disturbing “crunches” as he occasionally cuts to imaginative X-ray footage of what each hit does to the body and brain. However, despite Wayans’ pseudo-religious sermonizing, these hits never amount to much by way of Cade’s own sacrifice to be deemed worthy of the coveted “GOAT” (or “Greatest of All Time”) label.
The dangers of blinkered masculinity hover in the backdrop, as Wayans delivers a powerful performance as a kindly mentor overcome by the thrill of violence, and Withers searches for sure footing amidst a confusing scenario, to say the least. However, the movie’s themes are seldom expressed through anything more lucid than stray words and background symbols. Some dialogue gestures towards a playfully alluring homoeroticism, but the images are too bland to feature any kind of flavor (let alone something subtextually queer). The movie’s highlight may very well be Australian comedian Jim Jeffries in a small but creepy part as White’s health specialist, who injects Withers with a mystery fuel, but his role also ends up more lightly symbolic than tangibly meaningful.
Some mysteries are dropped. Others are re-introduced, but never reach the point of reveal or catharsis. All the while, the movie’s haphazard camera coverage obscures even the simplest of dialogue scenes (let alone eventual moments of intoxicated combat) in terms of who’s looking or standing where. The low, blood-red lighting of White’s spas and gymnasiums create an occasionally imposing feel, but its deals-with-the-devil are never logistically or poetically interesting enough to match this color palette.
When the movie finally, mercifully reaches its climax some 90 minutes in (a runtime that feels like an eternity), it spouts off in a dozen different directions that all circle ideas about the way young athletes are bred for success against their best interests. However, the ensuing bloodshed holds no thematic or emotional weight, and plays like too little footage was shot to achieve Tipping’s ambitions. It is, in a few words, really bad, and not in a way that makes it interesting to watch.
