Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
HIM - Movie Review by Lisa Blanck
Let me state off the top that this reviewer is definitely not the target audience for the film, other than the fact that we review movies. Many kinds of movies. If you made a VENN Diagram for HIM, the new film from Director Justin Tipping, courtesy of Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions, the plot falls roughly into intesection of three circles: football, slasher films and video games. Two of which this reviewer has little interest in, but I'll try to be as objective as possible.
Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) wants to play for the San Antonio Saviors, the home of the current GOAT, Isiah White (Marlon Wayans). Cade has sacrificed everything for football. He's a rising college star. On the eve of going to the Combine, he's attacked by one of White's rabid fans. Much talk had been made of Cade possibly being a more GOAT-ier GOAT than White, and, based on other events in HIM, White's fans will accept no one who dares to try to achieve the greatness of their chosen Gridiron God.
During the brutal attack, Cade receives an icepick to his brain, but somehow recovers, leaving him with a series of staples in his skull. The still-open, still-oozing scar perfectly resembles the eight laces/sixteen holes you'd find in a football. Per the doctors, he's suffering from a traumatic brain injury, which could get worse if he takes another hit to his noggin. Many football players of every age, from Pee Wee to the pros suffer traumatic life-affecting brain and spine injuries; the helmets are just padding.
Upon hearing he's 'recovered', White reaches out to Cade and invites him to his private 'training camp', where Cade is forced, over the course a week, to make and witness, ever more insane 'sacrifices'. He learns some sort of lessons in survival, being encouraged to dig deep, put football above everything else. At the exclusive camp, more rabid fans cross his path. White's crazy wife Elsie (Julia Fox) makes advances towards Cade. Her friends do the same, and he continues to resist their temptations. We witness blood transfusions from dead footballers, full-body ice baths, 200 degree saunas, runs through the desert till the participants vomit, a football throwing machine set to bleed and stun. Are they having fun yet?
HIM is style over substance. You're left wondering if, perhaps, this macabre display of ritualistic 'sacrifice' is all in Cade's still oozing brainpan, while he's in coma recovery at the hospital. Eventually, this cult-like worship of pain just became exhausting and mind-numbingly boring to watch, a winner-take-all akin to the slasher/devil worship/cult theme of DEVOUR, and I had to look that up.
