At least once every football season I come out of the haze of games with a hollowed out feeling. It comes with the feeling that I’ve wasted a day, accomplished nothing of value, and run through a mental checklist of more productive ways I could’ve spent that time. Then I tell myself that I was entertained during the time I spent watching football, checking fantasy scores, and texting friends “did you see this?” about various jaw-dropping plays and horrifying injuries. Have I gained anything? Have I learned anything about a game I’ve followed for most of my life? Today, after watching Justin Tipping’s pigskin freakout Him, I learned that I don’t even need to watch actual football to have those feelings.
I’ve been looking forward to Him since I first saw the trailer back in the spring when it played before Sinners. Man, Sinners, that was a movie. Anyway, the Him trailer hooked me with the slow motion shot of two players colliding, helmets crashing into each other and bouncing back as the image switched to x-ray vision to highlight the bone-jangling hit. Football and horror, hell yeah.
If I’m being honest, that mindset got me pretty fair into Him before it eventually ran out of steam. Him is electric at times, mostly because Tipping keeps the camera uncomfortably close to its subjects and he fills the screen with intense people. Then there’s the weird stuff. I’m hesitant to call Tipping something cliche like a visual stylist. Cinematographer Kira Kelly cooks up some undeniably cool images throughout Him, but they’re weightless, accompanied by nothing that will make them stick to your ribs.
Here’s the kicker: just like when I’m watching an irredeemably boring football game, I couldn’t completely disengage from Him‘s nonsense. Maybe I’m an optimist, or maybe I’m a sucker. Either way, the thing that kept me watching was Marlon Wayans. I’ve always found Marlon amusing, but I especially enjoy it when he takes on more dramatic roles. I know your mind immediately filled in the blank space after “dramatic roles” with Requiem for a Dream. Note that I said “dramatic” and not “serious” because Him is not a serious movie, not for one single second of its runtime.
I never expected Him to be a serious movie, but certainly could’ve been interesting. The combination of America’s most popular pastime and the idolatry and religious zealotry that frequently marks its fandom is fertile territory. Him follows generational quarterback prospect Cam Cade (Tyriq Withers) on his path to professional immortality. As a boy, we see Cam watch Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) suffer a gnarly leg injury. Isaiah bounces back to become a legendary player with eight titles in this non-NFL league (but the eight fictional titles gives him one more than Tom Brady’s seven real life rings). Under dubious circumstances, Cam comes under the tutelage of Isaiah. The movie speeds through its setup to get to the bulk of the story, which centers around the week Cam spends with Isaiah in a middle of the desert training facility where weird things can go down without any outside interference.
Him is amped up on steroids. Muscles are popping everywhere, emotions swing wildly within scenes and from moment to moment, the hits are hard, the highs are momentarily exhilarating, and the down moments feel empty. The problem is that all of this adds up to nothing. Withers gives a blank space performance and it’s not his fault. The contrivance that brings Cam to that secluded training facility renders his character emotionless and reactive. Whatever spark the movie has comes from Wayans. He plays up Isaiah’s psychopathic competitive drive, but is charismatic enough to keep Cam close by when he should be running for the hills. Eventually, Isaiah’s unpredictability becomes predictable and that is one of my biggest disappointments with Him.
The predictable nature of the story comes from the compressed timeline. I’m not a big fan of Monday morning quarterbacking creative choices, but in this case I can’t help but wonder how Him could have played out if it expanded its scope beyond this one week. The movie’s compressed timeline leaves little room for the movie’s themes to really develop. I’m still trying to figure out what Julia Fox’s character is up to or what she’s bringing to the story. The film gives off the same kind of experience as a community haunted house. The audience is shuffled from jump scare to jump scare efficiently but rarely ever effectively.
I haven’t read any interviews with Tipping, but one movie I thought about frequently throughout Him is Hype Williams’ Belly. Him trafficks in a similar kind of narrative ugliness, but Williams’ is a true visionary and his work with Malik Hassan Sayeed is undeniable, whereas Tipping only shows one or two moves without much variation. But, to Tipping’s credit, the visual style is probably the most noteworthy thing about the movie. It’s pretty much the only thing the movie has working in its favor consistently. Tipping does a great job setting the tone and atmosphere of Him early on, but the script, credited to Tipping, Zack Akers, and Skip Bronkie, is paper thin and the longer it goes the more apparent it becomes that there isn’t much on the film’s mind. It’s content to lean on football-related intensity and random sequences where non-players creep onscreen for glorified jump scares. Early training scenes of people willingly taking footballs to the face or blood transfusions hint at something dark lurking in the shadows, and you don’t have to be a top-tier defensive coordinator to know moves the story will take in the third act.
When you’re watching football, even the most boring games imaginable, like this past weekend’s Packers-Browns, Jaguars-Texans, or Panthers-Falcons games, even the most boring games can offer brief glimpses of inspired action. In the long arc of the season, or movie in Him’s case, no one will remember those fleeting moments in the long run. I don’t have a good pun to end on here, suffice to say that Him is like the team that spends all week practicing a few trick plays and forgets to come up with a full game plan.
